Forbidden
by dorkymako
Summary: After what happened last year, Lauren Jones has almost lost everyone. Until she meets Daniel Westfall, she is determined to find out more about him and discovers there is more to him than she thought, Some parts MA, PLEASE R&R
1. Chapter 1

_Chapter 1_

I'm driving my brand new Porsche into the parking lot and look for the nearest parking space near the school. My mom bought me this car for my 17th birthday, which was a month ago on July 22nd. She earns good money for her job as a social worker. My dad died by a car accident when I was 8 and my mom hasn't dated anyone since. She loved him so much that I don't she'll be able to find someone else.

Thoughts are running in my head, I can't even think straight. I'm nervous to be in Lamia Academy High School after what happened last year; I'm surprised that I wasn't permanently suspended for what I did. The whole school knows and I don't think anyone forgot over the summer, which makes the situation even worse.

As I'm thinking about the previous school year, I pull into my usual parking space, the closest one to the front doors. I turn off the engine, I sit and wait for it to be 7:45, so I could walk into school the last minute and still be on time to class, it doesn't start until 7:50. After all, I don't want to make a bad impression on the first day of school, and for the school to hate me even more.

There's a hard knock on my driver's side window, it makes me jump. But as I look over to see who it is, I breathe a sigh of relief and roll down my window; it's my best friend, Rachel Lawson. "Why the hell do you need to hit my window so hard, are you trying to break it," I say with a smile on my face. I'm so glad to see her, I haven't seen her since the middle of summer.

"Yeah, Lauren, because I want to be a bitch and break your window," Rachel says sarcastically with a grin on her face. The sun is shining on her, making her red hair shine and the red more noticeable, I'm jealous of how beautiful she is. She has the most unique colored eyes I've ever seen and she has the look and figure of a super model. How can my plain brown hair and eyes compete with that? We wear the same size clothes but she is so much more beautiful than I could ever be. "Are you coming out or what? We're going to be late for school you know"

I slump down into the car seat, "No, I wish I could just stay in here forever and not go to school at all."

"Oh, come on, Lauren, you can't still be upset about what happened last year, I'm sure everyone has forgotten about it by now."

"Rachel, an ambulance had to come to school for the first time ever in school history. Or did you forget about that part?"

"Well, it's a new school year and it's our junior year, you have to make the best out of the situation. Just leave the past behind where it belongs and make a new reputation, a good one. I know you can do this," Rachel says this so confidently that I'm starting to believe that I could. I grab my backpack and purse, open my car door, and get out of the car. Rachel and I start walking towards the main doors, "See? This is just the first step. Come on, you'll be with me so it will all be fine."

I take a deep breath and open the doors to the school. Rachel holds my hand for some reassurance and I'm glad she does because it gives me a boost of confidence and makes me feel that I can really do this.

Rachel and I walk to the hallway towards our lockers, luckily, the school assigned our lockers right next to each other and we have almost all the same classes except 1st block, I have Calculus and she has Biology II. I'm thankful that I won't be alone for the whole day, just in Calculus I will be. I'm sure I can survive the hour of class. I mean, it's not bad, it could be worse.

Once we get to our lockers, we start to unload our notebooks and folders from our backpacks into the lockers. I take a look around the hallway to see if anyone is staring and to see how many people decided to show up on the first day of school. Usually, people ditch the first day of school, which would have been better for me. But, as I'm looking in the hallway, I see that it is completely crowded. Just my luck, at least I don't see anyone staring, yet.

I finished getting ready for class faster, but, Rachel is still unpacking her stuff into her locker, curse her for being so slow. I feel like I need to get out of here now but I can't there's no turning back now. I'm impatiently waiting for her to finish up, tapping my foot in a rhythmic pattern. As I'm waiting, my other friends that I haven't talked to ever since the beginning of summer, come up to Rachel and I.

There's Michelle Peterson standing on the right side of me. She has these breathtaking crystal blue eyes and bleach blonde hair. She used to be my best friend in middle school, until I met Rachel. Michelle has never liked Rachel and that's why we stopped being friends all together, until freshmen year of high school. She's changed since middle school, now she's what I'd call prep.

Standing on Michelle's left side is Rebecca Parker; she is fairly new to Lamia. She moved here sophomore year. Rebecca was so lost back then, she was so shy and hardly had friends, but, now, she might be the most popular girl in school she looks just like Michelle except that she has hazel eyes and is extremely taller.

Right behind Rebecca is one of my awkward friends, Sophia Patterson. Sophia and I go all the way back to elementary school, we stopped being close around middle school. When I had my first boyfriend, a week later after we started dating, I found out that Sophia was the person he was cheating with. I've gotten over it but Sophia still feels guilty about it. She stands out from Rebecca and Michelle, she has chocolate brown eyes and underneath her red hair, she has it dyed purple which is starting to fade away.

"What classes do you have this semester Lauren?" Michelle asks me, not even looking towards Rachel.

"I have Calculus, American Government, Journalism, Lunch, Yearbook, and then English 11. What about you?"

Michelle has a sad look on her face, "Aww, I was hoping we would have more classes together, I only have Calculus with you. We need to catch up with each other," I was about to respond back but she interrupted me, "I know what we should do! You, Rebecca, Sophia, and I should have a sleep over this weekend. What do you say?"

I hesitated before answering. "Sorry, I can't I'm going to sleepover Rachel's house this weekend but what about next weekend?"

"Go ahead Lauren, I won't mind, we can just do something next weekend. I don't have a problem with it," Rachel says this with a hint of sadness in her voice; she knows that I have missed them lately.

"Are you sure Rachel? I mean, that would be rude of me to just cancel on you like that. We have been planning this weekend for awhile."

"It's fine, I need to do some chores this weekend anyway." I knew that she really didn't, she only said it to be nice.

"Okay, thanks," I say with a smile on my face. Rachel is so selfless, she always puts others before herself, it's one of the many reasons to why I love her.

Rebecca smiles, "Yay! We are going to have so much fun!" Right when she says this, the warning bell rings throughout the halls; signaling that class is about to start, "We've got to go, don't want to be late to class! Text us Lauren!" With that said, they walked away together to their classes.

"I'm sorry to say, but, they seem like typical dumb preppy blondes. Except that Sophia girl, she hardly ever talks when you're around, she seems like she would be an okay person though," Rachel says as we're on our way to Calculus. Luckily, her Biology II class is right next to my Calculus class, so, she can walk me there every day.

"They seem like it when you first meet them, but, once you get to know them better, they aren't so bad," I say. I feel bad that I haven't talked to them for so long after everything we have been through together, hopefully, this weekend can partly make up for lost times.

We stop in front of my Calculus class. "Maybe, but, that Michelle girl seems like she doesn't like me very much. She kept giving me glares when you guys were talking." Rachel doesn't know that Michelle and I were best friends before we even met, and she doesn't know that Michelle despises she doesn't really need to know; it isn't that important.

"Maybe she's just having a bad day? But, the bells about to ring, do you want me to text you during class?" Here in Lamia Academy, they don't really enforce the no cell phone policy, so, if you get caught with a cell phone in class, they don't take it away, they just tell you to put away.

"Of course," Rachel says. She hugs me and tells me good luck, I may just need it. I watch Rachel walk away and go into her classroom. Once she walked in her classroom, the bell rings and that helps motivate me to walk into my Calculus class with Mr. Jefferson.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter 2_

As I walk into Calculus, no one is sitting in their seats everyone is standing in the back of the room. I see Michelle in the back of the room. Once she sees me she waves me over to stand next to her. I walk over to her and ask, "What's going on? Why is everyone standing?"

"Oh, Mr. Jefferson is assigning seats this year," Michelle rolls her eyes, "But hopefully, I'll be able to sit next to you!" She says this with a smile on her face. I fake a smile back to her. I'm not in the mood to deal with this right now. I actually do hope I get to sit next to Michelle, so that I don't have to sit next to one of my classmates and so I could actually catch up with Michelle.

Mr. Jefferson calls our class to attention, "Alright class! Quiet now! As all of you should know, you're in my class, Calculus. I'm Mr. Jefferson for those of you who don't know me. This can be an easy class for you if you pay attention and do your work. If you can do those two things, we won't have any problems," he pauses and looks at everyone in the class. "Now, this year I'm assigning you seats since I think this will help all of you do better in my class. Compared to last year," Mr. Jefferson looks over at Michelle and she quietly laughs.

Mr. Jefferson walks over to the first row of tables, "All of you will have a partner for the rest of the year. Your partner can tutor you and just help you with anything you don't understand. If you don't like your partners, that's too bad. No matter how much you kick and scream, I will not change your seat. Got it?" The class nods in agreement. "Good."

He walks over to the first table and looks down at his clipboard, "Here at table 1, will be Colin West and Michelle Peterson." Before Michelle walks over to the table to sit down she whispers to me excitedly, "Yes!" She has had a crush on Colin West ever since he moved here back in freshmen year.

Mr. Jefferson walks to the next table, "Here at table 2, will be Adam King and Roger Evans." The two walk over and take their seats. Mr. Jefferson then walks over to table 3, "Here, will be Lauren Jones and Daniel Westfall."

Who's Daniel Westfall? I ask myself. He must be new, so he won't know what happened last year unless someone warned him already. Hopefully not.

I walk over to the table, once I get there, Daniel is already seated and his things out on the tabletop. I take my seat and look over at him. He has shaggy dark brown hair; it's so dark that it almost looks like black. He has these deep aqua colored eyes that remind me of the ocean. I decide to be nice and say hi.

"Hi," he says back without looking at me; he clearly isn't interested in talking. I'll at least make one last effort to make conversation, just to be nice.

"So, are you new here? I've never seen you here before," I say this with curiosity in my voice because I actually want to know about him. I have a feeling that I know him from somewhere but I just can't put my finger on it.

"Yeah, I'm new," Daniel says very shortly. He glances over me and he looks straight ahead at the white board, but, he looks back at me and says, "Why are you trying to talk to me?"

I didn't expect him to ask me that, "I'm just trying to be nice and introduce myself. I'm Lauren Jo-"

"Yeah, I know, you're Lauren Jones. I heard Mr. Jefferson," He says interrupting me. I don't know what his problem is so I decide to give up talking to him and turn towards the board where Mr. Jefferson is lecturing about his expectations for everyone in his class; he says the same thing every new school year.

What is Daniel's problem? I haven't done anything to him, he's acting like I did something wrong to him or something. I don't want to deal with this all year. I'll ask Mr. Jefferson if I can switch seats with someone, anyone. I'm sure he will, I know for a fact that I'm probably one of the best students in his class and I don't goof around like everyone else. I take it seriously.

"You're actually pretty hot," Daniel says this 10 minutes later after he basically told me that he didn't care. I look over at Daniel and he's eyeing me like I'm a piece of meat.

That's a weird thing to say to someone you just met, I probably have a confused look on my face but I don't care. "Thank you? I guess." That is a weird compliment, especially what happened just half an hour ago. It's like he totally did a 180 on me.

"No problem, so, what would you say if I asked you to hook up with me right after this class?" He says this with a smirk on his face, acting like he's funny or something. Well, he's not, now he just seems plain rude and an asshole.

"I would say no and for you to go screw yourself because that would be the only way you would get any action around here." I return the cocky smirk that he has on his face; I won't let him talk to me like that. He'll get a taste of his own medicine.

"Ooo you're feisty, I like that," he winks, "That means that you're good in bed." He just won't get rid of that grin on his face. It just makes me want to slap him even more. Why would someone talk to a girl like that? Especially if you just met the person? That just shows that he has no respect for women.

"Shut up, too bad that you'll never be able to find out." I turn myself so that I'm facing the board again and I watch Mr. Jefferson write a problem on the board. I'm just going to pretend that I'm paying attention maybe that will shut Daniel up. But I'm wrong.

"You should be nicer to me; I'm new here after all," he pauses for a moment, "Could you maybe show me around here?"

I don't get what his angle is, but, whatever it is, it's probably not good. "Just a few minutes ago, you acted like you didn't even want to talk to me at all. Now, you're talking about hooking up with me and me showing you around? Are you bipolar or something?"

Daniel laughs quietly, making me even more confused. "No, I'm just messing with you. You're so easy to make fun of, it's funny. Lighten up.

I frown, "Don't tell me to lighten up. It's not funny, you have no idea what I've been through lately and I'm not in the mood to joke around. Just pay attention to Mr. Peterson, I don't want to have to tutor you 24/7."

"Don't worry, I won't need it trust me."

"If you were so smart, you wouldn't be asking me to hook up with you, would you?"

He laughs again, "You've got such an attitude it reminds me of someone I used to know awhile back," right when he says this the bell rings. When I look over to Daniel, he's not there. I look around the room but he's nowhere to be seen. How did he get out of here so fast and why? There's no rush.

Once all of the class leaves, I walk up to Mr. Peterson who is sitting in his desk, "Mr. Peterson? Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, what is it?" He asks with a furrow in his brow, a look of concern on his face.

"I was wondering if I could change seats with someone. Daniel scares me and I don't think he likes me very much, plus, he is very distracting." Please say yes Mr. Peterson, I don't want to have to deal with him the whole year.

"I'm sorry; Lauren, but I said no seat changes, no exceptions. I'm sorry, I'll talk to him before class tomorrow but you'll have to deal with him for the rest year."

"Oh, its okay, I understand," I walk away and once I reach the door, Rachel is standing there waiting for me. She sees the worry in my face and asks me what's wrong. "Nothing, it's just there's this new guy here and he's my seat partner for Calculus and-"

"Ooo is he hot?" She asks excitedly, a little bit too excitedly. She hasn't had a boyfriend ever since she's moved so she tries to get the new students so that she can make a move on them first before anyone else can.

I laugh, "Well..." Come to think of it, he was. He had the most flawless bone structure I've seen and those eyes... But I would never date him in a million years. "He's a jerk; you wouldn't want to date him at all."

Rachel could tell from my face and my tone of voice that I wasn't in the best of moods, "What happened in Calculus? Was it Mr. Jefferson or this new guy? Or both?"

"Well, it's both of them. The new guy, Daniel, was so weird to me, I tried making conversation with him and he didn't even seem like he wanted to talk so I just gave up. Then, later he said I was pretty hot? Then he started making these sexual references to me, asking me if I wanted to hook up after class? Who does that?" I take a breath, "Then I asked Mr. Jefferson if I could change and he said no because of his new class policy."

"Of course Mr. Jefferson would do that, he's such a hard ass. Well, just ignore him if he tries to talk to you again and maybe he'll just give up talking to you all together. If he gives you any trouble again, you tell me and I'll tell him off. Okay?"

I nod, sometimes that makes me mad. That she thinks I couldn't tell him off myself so she does it, I'm a big girl. But, at the same time I am thankful to have her as my best friend and that she cares about me so much. I don't know where I would be without her.

"Alright," Rachel says with a smile, and we walk to our next class, American Government. Now, that I'm with Rachel I can get through the school day with no more trouble.


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter 3_

Later that night, I wasn't able to sleep. All I kept thinking about was Daniel, there's something about him that makes me want to know more about him. I shouldn't though, especially with the way he was talking to me and treating me earlier today at school. But the feeling that I got once I really looked at him. He looked so familiar to me, as if I've met him a long time ago. I need to why I'm feeling this way, there must be something that Daniel knows.

I'm thinking this as I brush my teeth, I bend over to spit into the sink and to rinse my mouth of any toothpaste remaining. As I straighten, I look into my mirror to check my mouth for any leftover toothpaste. Once I look into the mirror, I see that I'm not the only person in the reflection.

I only got a slight glimpse of the stranger, I look again and there is no one there. That one glimpse was enough to scare me and I immediately run over to the side of my bed and grab my baseball bat. I hold up the bat and look around the room. There is no one.

Then I instantly think of my mother who is across the hallway. I immediately run to my mother's room and slowly open the door. I instantly know that she is safe, I can hear her obnoxious snoring and I quietly close her door. I quietly sneak to the bathroom and poke my head in and look around. I flip on the light switch and no one is in there.

I slowly walk up to the shower curtain with my baseball bat raised, prepared to hit anyone who might be hiding in the shower. As I quickly pull back the shower curtain, I see that there is no one. Taped around the shower nozzle, is a small piece of paper. I step into the shower and carefully, I rip the note off of the shower nozzle and read it:

_Be cautious of whom you trust someone you know and trust will betray you soon. No one can be trusted_

I slide against the shower and lower myself to the bottom of the shower. As I lower myself, I break down and start to cry. I crumple the note and throw it to the other side of the shower. I cover my face with my hands and sob.

Why would someone break into my house and leave me a note like this? What was their purpose, to scare me? That part they accomplished. I should call the police but I'm so shaken about what I saw in the mirror and the note that I can't move, this makes me cry even more.

I'm not just crying about being shaken to the core but over everything. What happened the last school year, I've kept my emotions in for so long that they are finally surfacing and they don't have any intention of subsiding soon.

What I saw in that mirror wasn't human, that much is obvious. It was a female from what I could tell from the bone structure. The face that I saw was a face of a demon. The female had piercing bright red eyes and she hissed, revealing sharp looking fangs that looked like they would be able to pierce through anything. This mysterious woman had a look of hatred and rage on her face; it looked like she was going to kill me, but, why didn't she? She had every opportunity to but she didn't take it. Nothing would have stopped her.

I don't know what I saw tonight but whatever it was, it was inhuman. I don't move and never go to sleep, I cry all night. Once I see the break of dawn stream into the bathroom window, I get up and walk to my room to get ready for school.

I don't even bother fixing or correcting my makeup, I just put on a fresh new pair of jeans, a plain v neck shirt, and a button on sweater. I look over the note once more before I stuff in my back jean pocket and walk out the door to my car.

* * *

><p>Once I arrive at school, I don't even bother waiting for Rachel. Once Rachel saw me, she would tell that something happened and she would want answers. I don't feel like talking to anyone right now, even Rachel. Even if I were to tell her, she would think I was crazy.<p>

I go through the main double doors and head straight to my locker. It doesn't even matter that people are judging me anymore; I know now that there are worse things in life that can happen. I could have died last night, but I didn't. Maybe it's a sign, a motivator to help me get over the past and focus on the future. Or maybe I'm full blow crazy.

I get my books from my locker and stuff my backpack in the locker. I head to Calculus, and once I get there, I sit down in my assigned seat. I don't like Daniel but I realize that he could be worse, so I guess I can manage with him.

As I'm waiting in the classroom for the teacher and the rest of my classmates to come in, Daniel walks through the door and sits down right next to me, in his seat. "You look like shit, you have a rough night?" I just turn away from him and scoot my chair on the farthest end of the table.

We sit there silent for a few minutes until he breaks the silence. "Look, I'm sorry about what happened yesterday."

I look over at him and see that his face is sincere with what he's saying. "It's okay." I don't want a conversation right now.

"No, it's not okay. I was a dick, to be honest," he pauses to see if I'm still listening, he sees that I am so he continues, "The reason why I was like that yesterday was because you reminded me of someone I knew a long time ago and she was a bitch. So, I guess I took my emotions out on you by being a jerk. To top all of that off I was in a bad mood beforehand which made my intentions worse."

"That's the lamest excuse I've ever heard in my life." What a load of crap, he knows what he did was wrong so he's trying to apologize so he won't seem like a jerk to everyone else and try to become popular or something like that.

"It's the truth. Why would I make something like that up?"

"I don't know maybe to make you look better or something for apologizing. Or to keep your reputation intact? We wouldn't want that to happen now would we?"

Daniel has a confused look on his face, "I don't have a reputation here, plus I really couldn't care less about me having a bad reputation or a good one. I'm only apologizing because it's the right thing to do. I'm sorry."

He looks sincere about what he is saying so I finally just accept the fact that he may not be a jerk like he was yesterday after all. "Fine, apology accepted." He turns his body away from me and kicks his legs up on the table. "Thanks though."

"No problem." We're quiet for the rest of the time then Mr. Jefferson walks in 5 minutes left till the warning bell will ring.

"Mr. Westfall, I was meaning to talk to you," Mr. Jefferson walks up to our table, looking at Daniel.

I already know what Mr. Jefferson was going to talk to Daniel about, so, I decide to save him from the lecture he was about to receive from Mr. Jefferson. "Don't worry about it Mr. Jefferson. He already apologized and now we're fine. Thank you."

"Oh, well, that's good. Mr. Westfall, I expect you to be more respectful of your classmates. I don't want to take matters into my own hands. Do we have an understanding?"

"Yes, Mr. Jefferson."

"Good, now, get your feet off of my table." Once Mr. Jefferson says this, Daniel places his feet on the floor and sits up straight. I giggle. When Mr. Jefferson leaves, Daniel smiles and says sarcastically, "You told on me? You're badass."

I laugh, "I know I am, thank you." I smile at him. Daniel is actually a sort of cool person. I'm glad that he apologized, it made things sort of right between us. Maybe if I got to know him a little more we could actually be friends. Maybe. "So, am I able to ask you questions without you giving me sarcastic, asshole answers?"

He smiles, "Yeah, but, don't get all personal on them. No offense to you or anything though. You know how it is."

"Yeah, I guess I do. I understand," when I say this, the bell rings and the whole class is in the room. I didn't know that warning bell even rang. Mr. Jefferson takes his place in front of the class and starts the lesson.

* * *

><p>Once the school day is over, I start heading to my car to go home. Until, Rachel steps in front of me and asks, "Where the hell were you and why didn't you wait for me?" She sounds angry but I know she really isn't, she's just hurt.<p>

"I was upset earlier today and I didn't want to take it out on you or make you upset too." It was really the reason to why I didn't wait for her this morning. I didn't need to make up a lie or anything.

She face gets serious and she asks, "Well, what were you upset about? You know you can tell me anything Lauren."

Now, this part I had to lie about. I hate lying to her but I didn't want to tell her the truth because she would think I was crazy if I really told her. I had to think of an excuse and fast, "Umm, well, my cat died. She got hit by a car yesterday." I walk around her and start heading to my car. But she quickly follows.

"Lauren Kathleen Jones, you and I both know that you don't have a cat. You are the worst liar in the world." I keep walking until she speeds up and steps in front of me again. "So, what is it really? Seriously, you can tell me, you know that."

Time to come up with a new lie, "Well, uhh, you see… my mom and I got into a really bad fight yesterday and it has me in a bad mood still." That was a good lie; it would be believable to Rachel. Hopefully. She knows me way too well.

Rachel believes it, "Oh my gosh, I'm sorry. That's the 2nd fight this month. What was it about this time?"

Thank Jesus she believed me, "About the same thing as before. Look, it's not against you or anything but I really don't feel like talking about it, so, text me. I'm going to go home and get to work on my chores before I get yelled at even more."

My mom and I do fight a lot, she says I never do anything around the house and I'm ungrateful. I don't know what she's talking about because I do everything around the house since she isn't home most of the time. It's little stuff like this that we argue about. I just want it to stop.

Rachel looks disappointed but she understands, "Okay, text me I guess." She gives me a hug and tells me everything that will be okay and that she loves me. My own mother doesn't even tell me that anymore. I tell Rachel that I love her too and thank her. Bringing up my mom reminds me of the poor relationship we have and the relationship that I long for with her. I run over to my car go in the driver's seat, put my head on the steering wheel and cry.

I cry about the fact that my own mother doesn't tell me that she loves me or hug me like Rachel does. I cry about the fact that I wish my dad here, she hasn't been the same sense and it would make my life easier if she was happier; seeing her happy would make me happy.


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter 4_

_**1 month later**_

I arrive to school but I won't be waiting for Rachel in my car like I always do, I'm going to wait for her right outside the main double doors so we could be able to get into the school faster without being late to class so much. As I'm on my way to the main doors, I hear something from the woods that surrounds the school not far behind me. It sounds like an animal dying. I keep walking but still look to the woods, when I crash into someone.

I lose my balance and my purse falls to the ground, my belongings inside of it scattering. I feel myself falling backwards until the same person I ran into catches me, straightening me back up. I turn around and see who it was that I ran into, it's Daniel. "I'm so sorry; I wasn't watching where I was walking," I frantically apologize. I kneel down and start picking up my things.

Daniel and I talk a lot in class, well, not a lot but a fairly good amount. I've gotten to know him better compared to the first time I met him. Even though I've gotten to know him a lot more, I still keep my distance from him. There's something about Daniel that feels unsafe and safe to me at the same time. I feel like there's a huge secret about him that he's hiding from me, but, I don't know what it is. And that's what I need to find out.

Daniel laughs, "It's alright. It was my fault, calm down," he kneels down beside me and starts helping me pick up my things. He looks over to me, continuing helping me pick up my belongings. He notices that I have a scared expression on my face, "Is something wrong?"

"No, it's just that- it's just that you scared me, that's all. Thanks though," I give him a weak smile, I appreciate him being so nice to me now, but, I still feel like there's something off about him. I need to know why I feel like I've known him before.

I'm starting to shake as I'm picking up my things, I don't know why I'm reacting like this. Maybe it's because he really did scare me. He came out of the blue; just like that girl did a couple nights ago in my bathroom. Am I going schizophrenic or something? Maybe I hallucinated that female… I don't even know what I should call her. A demon? That's what she looked like to me.

As I'm thinking about that female demon, I keep picking up my things. I can feel Daniel's eyes watching my every move that I make. As if he is waiting for me to do something. I look over at him, "Do you have a staring problem?" I know I was being rude but I'm a little on edge.

He instantly stops staring at me and focuses on my things and looks back over at me, "Sorry I was just-" I hear a sizzling kind of sound, barely audible, and then Daniel winces in pain. I look down and see his right hand holding onto my rosary that I carry with me everywhere I go. He drops it instantly as if it was on fire. I then notice that in his hand was the cross from the rosary imprinted into his palm. It was as if the cross was permanently burned into his palm.

"Are you okay?" I ask cautiously, debating wherever or not I should believe what I have just seen. Maybe I am schizophrenic after all. Maybe everything that has happened in my life is finally getting to me now. "What happened?"

Daniel hesitated before saying, "Yeah, I'm fine. I just must have hit my hand or something, but I'm fine now. See." He lifts up his right hand and faces his palm towards me. There isn't a cross embedded into the skin of his palm. I could have sworn I saw and heard his flesh burning as he touched my rosary. "Nothing happened."

"Oh, okay. That's good." I pause for a moment. "I could have sworn that I saw my rosary burnt your hand," I laugh this off, "How crazy does that sound?" I probably look and sound like a complete lunatic to him right now.

He doesn't laugh or agree with my statement. He looks worried but he looks away for a split second and looks back at me. He gives me a small smile, "Yeah that does sound crazy." Daniel then puts my belongings into my purse. "Umm, I've got to go. I'll see you in Calculus." He then speed walks away from me. I also put the things I picked back into my purse. I look over to Daniel, but he is completely gone. I only looked away not even 4 seconds and he is nowhere to be seen.

That was strange. Once I mentioned what I thought I saw, he got flustered and became short with me. There's something off about him, but, I just don't know what. I'm determined to find out what it is about him that draws me to him.

I pick up my purse and I start to quickly walk towards the main doors. Looking both ways, seeing if Daniel is anywhere to be found, but, he isn't. He couldn't have gone into the building that fast. Could he? Once I get to the main doors, I wait outside of them, in hopes that Rachel will come by soon.

As I'm standing by the doors waiting for Rachel, I hear another noise from the woods. At first I think it's another animal cry like earlier, but, as I listen to the sound more intently, I realize that the cry is in fact, human. The cry that I hear sounds as if someone is being murdered, a bloodcurdling scream. I stiffen at the thought and my hands start to shake as I reach for my back pocket where my pocket knife is tucked away. I head into the woods to search for the source of those cries.

I start to quicken my pace once I'm into the woods themselves. I stop and listen but there are no more cries. I stand still for a moment to hear if another scream will fill my ears again but there was none. Then, I start to run in the direction where I believed the ear piercing screams were coming from.

I stop once I come upon a meadow like area, and lying in the center of the meadow was a girl; all I could see from this distance was that she was bleeding, bad. I suddenly trip over something as I start jog towards the girl, making me face dive onto to the woodland ground. I turn my torso so I am able to look behind me. When I turn my head, I see that I have tripped over a tree root. I can feel the blood gushing out of my leg for I had fallen onto a sharp wooden stick that had been sticking out of the ground. I quickly get up and start to limp towards the bleeding girl.

As I get closer the girl, I recognize who she is; it's Abigail Fletcher, she likes to be called Abbey. I've known Abbey all my life; we've grown up together since kindergarten. I always used to be jealous of her long, luscious, curly black hair and her piercing emerald eyes. But, we have never been friends or anything like that. Abbey and I were more like acquaintances, neither friends nor strangers.

Once I reach Abbey, I kneel down next to her body. My leg stung from bending it, I wince, but I quickly block out the pain from my mind so that I could help out Abbey. I put my hands on both sides of her face, "Abbey, can you hear me?" There isn't a response so I pull my cell phone out of my back pocket, "Don't worry, you'll get help soon enough. You'll be okay." I immediately dial 9-1-1.

"9-1-1, what is your emergency?" The operator says.

"Umm, yes, I'm in the woods and I found a classmate of mine. She's bleeding very badly and she's not responding," I may sound calm to the operator but really, I'm freaking out on the inside. What if whatever or whoever attacked Abbey comes back to finish off what it started? I hold the phone to my ear with my left hand and place my right hand into Abbey's; hoping that she is assured that I'm here for her.

"Where is your location?" The operator asks nonchalantly, the opposite of what I'm feeling.

"I'm in the woods near Lamia Academy High School. Please hurry, she won't stop bleeding."

"An ambulance is on their way, now, I need you to stay on the phone with me until the ambulance gets there. Are you able to stay on the phone?"

"I'm sorry, but I can't," I then immediately hung up on the operator. I don't know why I just did that. I think it was because I was scared and I didn't want the operator to know how scared I really was. I also wanted to call someone who could help me get Abbey out of the woods so that the ambulance could get to her quicker. I call the only person I knew that would be able to help me.

I dial Daniel's number. The only reason I had it was because he gave it to me just in case I needed help with Calculus. As if. But I took his number anyway and now it's a good that I did have his number.

He picks up on the 2nd ring, "Lauren? Where are you? Class is going to start any minute. Not that I care or anything." I don't say anything to his remark like I usually do; right off the bat he knew that something must have been wrong. "What? No snappy comeback?"

"I need you to come out to the woods. Now. It's really important," I say urgently.

"What's wrong, are you alright?" His voice slipping into his serious tone.

"I'm fine, but, I can't say the same for Abbey. Just, please come quickly," I click the end button.

Once I hang up with Daniel, I turn my attention back to Abbey. I check her wrist for a pulse and it's there, barely. I move her hair back from her wound on the left side of her neck. As I unveil the wound, I dab it with the sleeve of my sweater. I furrow my brow in confusion as I notice that the shape of the wound is abnormal. It looks like teeth marks, human-like teeth marks.

Just as I notice this, I hear rustling of the fallen autumn leaves behind me. I turn my head slightly to see what caused the noise and I see a man dressed in all black, slowly coming towards Abbey and I. From what I can tell of this man, he wasn't concerned with Abbey's condition. I had a sudden feeling overwhelm me, a feeling that this person was the one who harmed Abbey. Instead, of feeling fearful, I feel angered. How could this person do such a thing to another human being? "Who are you? What do you want?" I shout at the man

The mysterious man doesn't respond and keeps stalking towards us as if we were he was a predator, and we were his prey. Just as I thought all hope was lost for Abbey and I, the man suddenly ran away in a flash and in his place where he stood, is Daniel. He quickly walks over to us, "What's going on? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, but, Abbey Fletcher isn't. She is hurt really bad and I was hoping that you would carry her to the edge of the woods so that the ambulance is able to find her faster. She needs to get to the hospital quicker; she's losing a lot of blood," I say this to Daniel franticly letting all my emotions I've been building up pour.

Daniel kneels down beside me and grabs my shoulders, "Look at me Lauren, calm down. She's going to be fine, just breathe." I start taking deep breaths and get out of Daniel's way so he would be able to carry Abbey.

The moment I stand up, I fall down again. Daniel immediately catches me. I stood up too abruptly, I guess that I was so focused on Abbey and the man that I forgot that I had my own injury. But, mine isn't important, Abbey's was. "Don't worry about me, Daniel, take Abbey."

Daniel makes me lie down on my back on the ground, "Don't you move one inch. I'll be back," He quickly yet carefully lifts Abbey into his arms. Her legs dangling and her head carefully placed on his chest. Daniel then walks off with Abbey out of the woods.

I can't help but worry for Abbey as I'm lying there. Hopefully the ambulance will get to the school soon and Abbey will be okay. What if Abbey wouldn't end up being okay? What if she dies? I wouldn't be able to handle that and deal with that the rest of my life. Somehow, it would feel as if it was my fault if she dies. One single tear streams down my face. I quickly wipe it away. I wish that the tear was everything that has gone wrong in life. I'd be able to just simply wipe it away and erase the bad.

Just as quickly as Daniel left, he came back without Abbey, taking long strides towards me. "Where's Abbey? Is she okay?"

"She's fine, stop worrying," he looks down at my leg, "Is that what you call being okay?" He says with a sly smirk on his face.

I laugh. "Yes. It isn't that bad is it?"

"I don't know how to tell you this, but, it looks pretty bad." I look down at my leg and it does look bad, the stick has to be lodged in my leg pretty deep because it's gushing out blood. I look at Daniel's face and he looks as if he's trying to resist something, he looks sick to his stomach. "Let's go so the ambulance can treat you too." He quickly yet carefully lifts me up into his arms, my legs dangling and my head on his chest. I wrap my arms around his neck. I suddenly feel safe and protected in Daniel's arms; it makes me more calm and collected especially in this situation.

"What's wrong? You look like you're going to throw up or something? Is it just because of the blood?" I ask with concern in my voice. He doesn't look okay; he looks like he's trying to fight off an urge or a feeling of some sort.

"I'm fine," he reassures me, "It's just the blood, and it's starting to make me feel sick I guess." He wouldn't look at me when he said this. I know Daniel well enough that when he doesn't look at you directly, it means he is lying. But I just brush it off, not wanting to make him upset if I keep pushing the matter forward.

"Why do you need to carry me? I can walk on my own you know. I'm not handicapped; I've got two working legs."

"Don't you mean one working leg? You can barely walk on your left leg." Daniel says correcting me. "Besides if I let you walk on your own, it would take 10 times longer for you to be there for Abbey like you said you wanted to."

"I guess you're right, for once," we both smirk, "Do you think Abbey is going to be okay? It was weird, I looked at her neck and I saw these bite marks. But they didn't look like they belonged to an animal, they looked human." Right when I share this news, Daniel stiffens.

"That's strange, what do you think might have caused that?" He says distantly, he sounds careful with his words like he doesn't want to say the wrong thing.

"I don't know, maybe I'm just seeing things. There is no way that a person could bite someone like that, right?"

"Yeah, you are probably right." We're silent for the rest of the time. As we get closer out of the woods, I hear sirens going off. Good, that means that the ambulance had arrived in time. After a minute, we finally are out of the woods. Once we get to the ambulance truck, Daniel puts me down on my feet and walks away to the EMT's and police.

I look around me and I see that all of the school is outside watching from a distance. For surrounding the woods is police tape. The police are talking to the Principal and the Assistant Principal, probably questioning them about what had happened. To the right of me, I see Abbey being pulled away by a gurney. Daniel comes in elongated strides to me, "We're going to the hospital." He didn't wait for me to respond, he instantly lifts me up in his arms because he knew that I would resist.

"Put me down! NOW!" I demanded. I slap and try to squirm out of his arms but he's too strong for me. "I don't need to go!" I know that I sounded like a child but I really think I needed to go. It was just a stick lodged up my leg, Daniel could just pull it out couldn't he instead of waiting his time.

"I think you kind of do. Don't make me call the cops, they're right over there," he nodded his head over by the police cars and where the police men were standing.

"Go ahead, I can just tell them that you're trying to kidnap me and _you're_ going to be the one who gets arrested." We're in the parking lot now, on our way to his car.

He laughs, "Oh, Lauren, you and I both know that you're too nice of a person to do that. Plus, if I did end up getting arrested, you would miss me too much." We reach an all black 2012 ZL1 Camaro. I would think that I would notice this car in the parking lot but I didn't know what kind of car Daniel drove. He clearly likes flashy, expensive vehicles.

He goes over to the passenger side opens the door still carrying me and carefully slides me into the passenger seat. A few seconds later, Daniel is in the driver's seat and had started the car. He quickly backs the car out of the parking space and puts the Camaro into drive, on the way to the same hospital that Abbey will be once Daniel and I arrive.


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter 5_

Daniel and I have been silent ever since we left the school. It isn't until we reach the highway when he tries to start a conversation with me. "So, have you been to the hospital before?" I look over at him and see that he seems to be troubled by something.

"Umm, yeah, once when I was 10 when we still had my cat, he practically slit my eyelid open and I had to get stitched up. My mom got rid of the cat after that happened, and that's why I don't like cats now. So, if you bring a cat near me I _will _throw the thing in your face."

He throws his head back and laughs, "Thanks for the heads up Lauren. Now I know what to get you for your birthday." Daniel says with a cocky grin.

My face goes from smiling to serious, "You wouldn't." I try to say this with venom in my voice but it ended up with me squeaking like I was going through puberty or something. This makes Daniel laugh even more and that causes me to frown and I smack his arm with some force.

He looks over at me with a fake shocked look on his face, "Ow that hurt my arm and my feelings." He says with a sense of false sadness in his voice. Daniel takes his left hand and places it on the spot where I hit him between his shoulder and elbow.

I grin, "Well, now you know not to mess with me, Daniel Westfall."

"Of course Lauren Jones, you sure showed me." He turns his attention back to the highway ahead of him and has the troubled expression across his face. That was sort of a mood change. I debate whether I should ask him what's wrong or not. I don't want to upset him or become a little disappointed if he doesn't want to talk about it. We're friends now; he should be able to tell me what's wrong. I take the risk, "What's the matter?"

He glances over at me, "Nothing, why do you ask?" Liar.

"Oh, well, because you went from being happy to being serious and it looks like there's something wrong or bothering you. What is it?"

"Nothing, it's just-" He pauses and looks around in the car and finally lays his gaze upon my leg. "I don't want to get blood on my car floor, that's all." Again with the lies. It's clear he doesn't want to tell me so I just leave it alone.

"Oh, I'll try not to stain your precious car with my blood then," I say a little too bitterly. He doesn't seem to care and just ignores my remark. "You know that if there's anything bothering you or you need to talk to someone, I'm here for you. I just wanted to let you know. We're friends now so you can trust me with your problems."

"I know that, I appreciate the gesture and reassurance, thank you." Daniel smiles at me with that stunning smile that makes my heat skip a beat, and that's how I know that he took my words to heart and really did appreciate me.

I smile back but my smile can't be as stunning as his. "Anytime." Finally, we get off the highway which means that the hospital isn't too far from where we are now. We both look at the road in front of us and don't talk for the rest of the short yet long ride to the hospital. Once we get to the ER department entrance, Daniel gets out and opens the door for me and I hop out of the Camaro.

"I'm going to park the car really quick, just stand there and wait for me. I'll be right back." He runs to the driver's side and drives off. Just as quickly as he left, he comes back, lifts me up and takes me into the ER. The nurses in the front desk immediately notice my leg and immediately go into the back and grab a wheelchair. I roll my eyes, the nurses acted as if I was dying, as they basically pushed me down into the chair. Before the nurse wheeled me away, I ask while looking at Daniel, "Am I allowed having someone with me in the room?" I didn't want to be alone the whole entire time and I give the elderly woman a sad look.

The nurse, or Linda from the looks of her name tag, looks skeptical. "I'll ask the doctor but don't get your hopes up. But for now, while you are waiting for the doctor, I guess I'll let you have someone in there with you." She says with a smile towards Daniel and with that Daniel, Linda, and I head towards the room the hospital has assigned me.

One we arrive at a room marked as 112, Daniel immediately lifts me up from the wheelchair and sits me up onto the hospital bed. Linda moves across the room towards a dresser type of thing and pulls out a hospital gown. "Would you like me to help you change with or without your boyfriend?"

Once she said boyfriend, I instantly blush, "Oh, he- he isn't my boy-boyfriend," I mentally kick myself in the ass for stuttering at the worst possible moment. At the corner of my eye, I see Daniel looking at me trying to hold back a laugh. It's clear that he wasn't trying to hold back his cocky smile. He found it funny that I was blushing and stuttering at the thought of him being my boyfriend, that ass. "So, no, I wouldn't like him in the room right now please."

"You sure?" Daniel sarcastically says with a big grin on his face, "It's nothing that I haven't seen before," he winks.

I grab the pillow off from the hospital bed and chuck it at him. "You pig, now go away." My pillow didn't do any good since he caught it with no problem. He laughs, walks over and places it back on the bed where it was before. "Okay, okay," Daniel says with his palms up in surrender. With that, he walks out of the room with no objection.

Once Daniel leaves, Linda retrieves a pair of scissors from a drawer and without warning starts cutting one of my favorite pairs of jeans. "Hey!" I exclaim.

"Sorry dear, I have to. It's the only way to get these pants off." She quickly snips the material in less than a minute, soon, I'm left standing there with only my black lace bra and matching panties on. I feel violated; I feel naked and self conscious just in my bra and panties. It's a good thing I matched today or else the nurse would have thought I was uncoordinated. Linda tells me to lift my arms straight in front of me, I do as she says. She slips on the gown and ties the laces on the back of the hospital gown for me. Once she finishes tying my gown, Linda helps walk me and lay me down into the bed and puts the covers on top of me but leaving them off of my left leg where the wound is.

"Another nurse should be in shortly to get some blood and put an IV in," Linda quickly says and before I can thank her she rushes out of the room. Daniel pokes his head in looking towards me and asks, "May I come in?"

I smile, "Why, yes, of course you can come in." I wave my hand, encouraging him to come in. He slowly walks in, his eyes never leaving my wound.

He stands at the foot of the bed and finally looks up at me, "It looks worse up close and personal." I roll my eyes and sarcastically say, "Thanks for making me feel better." He smiles but it doesn't mean his eyes and replies, "You're welcome."

Another nurse walks in quickly, as Linda promised, holding a bin of needles and vials for the blood. She smiles and introduces herself, "I'm Nancy and what I'm going to do today is take a vial of blood for testing and I am going to hook you up to an IV drip. Okay?" I nod. I slightly get nervous at the thought of a being poked with a needle. As she prepares me for the IV and blood taking, she asks, "Have you lost a lot of blood?"

"No, not really, it's not as bad as it was before. It was a few squirts of blood, that's it."

"That's good, how are you feeling? Any nausea, dizziness, or anything like that?"

"No, I've felt fine."

"Alright, you're all done, thank you for your time. The doctor should be in shortly." I look done and sure enough, the IV was hooked up and she was holding a vial of my blood in her hand. I hardly felt it, I guess I was distracted by Daniel, he had a look of concern for me, and he genuinely looked like he cared for me and my health.

Before Nancy walked out, I called out thank you to her and I faintly heard her reply with "you're welcome." I look to Daniel again, "Are you okay? I'm a little worried about you."

He has a look of confusion on his face, "Yes, why would you ask me that? I should be asking you the same thing; after all, I'm not the one with a stick jammed into my leg. You shouldn't be worrying about me."

I'm a taken aback by his anger, well, it wasn't necessarily anger, and it faintly did sound like anger. I'm sure that it wasn't towards me though. "Sorry, you just seem like don't feel good. You don't have to stay in here with me you know."

He shakes his head, "No, I'm fine. I want to stay in here with you. I want to be here for you, until your mother arrives." He looks away as he says this, Daniel knows that I didn't want my mom here but he must have called her or had Linda call her. He sees the shocked look on my face, "As much as you say you don't like your mother and don't want her to be here for you, you still need her here."

I scowl at him, "Why? So that she can complain about a hospital bill and how the medication is going to be expensive and how she wishes that I wasn't so clumsy and that I should have watched where I was going? No thank you. I don't want to hear her crap." My mom has always been like this, complaining about her not thinking about anyone but herself most of the time.

"It may seem like that now, but, I'm sure she won't be like that, especially with me here. She loves you and wants you to be better, regardless of the sacrifice she has to pay, she cares." He said this with so much confidence that I couldn't help but believe him, slightly, not completely.

"Fine," I grunt, frowning at my defeat. I didn't feel like arguing with Daniel, I didn't have the energy to. He smiles at my frown. I quickly smooth out my face, because just then, the doctor walks in. The doctor is also old, but not as old as Linda, I would say he was around his early 50's, or late 40's his hair starting to fade away to a gray color.

"Hello, I'm Dr. Herman, and I'll be your doctor this morning," he looks down at my leg as he pulls a pair of latex gloves on, "Now, let's take a look at that leg." He is careful to where he put his hands fearing that he might move the stick. Finally, he places his hand at the left side of where the stick is lodged in and leans in to examine it closer.

After not even a minute of looking at my leg, he starts taking his gloves off, "I'm afraid we're going to have to do surgery on your leg as quickly as possible. Don't you move your leg one inch; I don't want you to puncture anything else in your leg. All we need is a parents' consent and signature for us to move forward with the operation. Excuse me a minute," With that, Dr. Herman walks out of the room quickly, leaving me alone with Daniel.

"What do you think Dr. Herman is doing?" I ask Daniel trying to make a little bit of a conversation.

"Calling your mother and letting her know what is going on with you and telling her what they will need to do," he says nonchalantly. Suddenly, Dr. Herman comes in unexpectedly, and behind him my mom is standing in the doorway looking at me with pity, not anger as I had suspected.

"It looks like we don't need to wait; your mother has been talked to and has already signed your papers. We're going to go to surgery right now; it's already prepared for you." Dr. Herman explains as if he has done this a thousand times.

Daniel, knowing that that was his cue to leave, walks out of the door standing near my mom. Just then, 3 more nurses come into my room and release the latches underneath the bed, allowing them to roll me out of the room. As the nurses roll me past my mom and Daniel, they wish me luck and tell me that they will be waiting for me in the waiting room when I got out of surgery.

My palms start to get sweaty as the thought of surgery is slowly hitting me, what if something goes wrong? And they would have to amputate my leg? I don't know how I would live normally ever again if that did happen, I would never be the same. What would my mom do? I'm sure it would devastate her, dealing with a crippled daughter.

Finally after rolling through multiple halls, the nurses and I reach the operation room. Once we get into the room, they carefully lift me and move me over to a different bed; a nurse named Debbie informs me that she's going to inject me with the anesthesia. She also tells me to count to 10, I don't know what that will do, but I count. "1…2...3…4…" Before I could count to 5, everything becomes dark and I slowly start to relax into unconsciousness.

* * *

><p>I faintly hear people talking, waking me from my peaceful slumber. I start to process what is going on, determining what is reality and isn't. I feel a hand grasping mine, it feels cold and clammy. I slowly start to open my eyes, wanting to go back to that peaceful sleep I was in before. Everything is blurred, I blink trying to get rid of the blurriness in my eyes. After a couple timing blinking, I can see clearly now, I see the faces looking down upon me. I realize that the faces I'm seeing belong to my mother, Dr. Herman, and Daniel. "Mom?" I ask groggily.<p>

The hand around mine tightens its grasp, "I'm here baby, and I'm not going anywhere right now." Yeah, right now, that's very assuring I think to myself. My mom turns her attention to Dr. Herman, "Is she going to be alright?" She sounds so concerned, but, I feel that it's just an act because she's with other people; she wouldn't to sound like a bitch, after all that might hurt her sterling reputation. I wouldn't want to do that to her now would I.

"She'll be fine," says with reassurance, "We need to keep an eye on her though for the rest of the day, to make sure she doesn't have an allergic reaction to the anesthesia," he pauses for a moment and looks at my newly repaired leg. "As for her leg, it's going to take about 3 weeks to completely heal. I'm going to prescribe her with some painkillers and antibiotics for her infection. If she's doing well tonight, she'll most likely be able to leave here by tomorrow night." He smiles to my mom, "I'll leave you 3 alone." My mom thanks him and he walks out, surely leaving me alone with Daniel and my mom.

After a few minutes of silence, Daniel clears his throat purposely and states, "Well, I should probably go back to school. But I'll be back after school if you want me to be that is," he sounds so awkward; I've never heard him sound like that ever. It's most likely because my mom was with me and after everything I've told him about her and that it was his first time meeting her, I'm not surprised that he is intimidated by her.

I smile at the thought of Daniel coming back to see me, it makes me feel special. "Of course I would want you to come back." Daniel nods his head and walks to the door, but, he stops in the doorway and turns his head towards my mom and I. "Nice to meet you Ms. Jones," he looks at me and tells me that he will see me later. With that being said, he left the room and soon will be leaving the hospital. I turn my attention back to my mom, "I'm surprised you showed up."

She frowns, "Of course I would be here, why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, last time I went to the hospital you were so mad at me, and kept blaming it on me. So I thought this time you wouldn't show up to deal with my crap again, just like you said before." I know I'm saying it bitchy but I think she deserves it after the way she has treated me all these years.

My mom sighs, and takes a seat in the chair near my left side. "I know that I haven't been the greatest mother to you lately, and there's no excuse for my behavior. But, ever since your father died I just haven't been the same," she takes a breath. "I haven't been the same; I have so much anger and regret towards your father that I wish I can tell him personally. So, I think I just take it out on you because you're like him so much, I just miss him." She looks so sad, the saddest I've ever seen my mom in years, but, I still feel that she's holding something back from me.

"Mom, there's something you're not telling me, what is it?" I'm sure whatever it is couldn't be that bad.

She signs again, "You know how your father was driving late at night when he got into the accident? Well, what you don't know is that he was driving drunk and he was coming home from his girlfriend's house on his way home to us," she pauses letting me take in the news. I'm shocked that my own father would do that to his own family. To put us through that is unbearable to me, why would someone do that to their own family? I don't say anything to this, so she goes on, "That's why I have been angry at your father and taking it out on you. I just wish I could make things right between you and me." My mom starts to tear up and soon I see tears streaming down her face. I instinctively hold my arms out to her and she rises from her seat, comes over to me and hugs me.

I've missed this with my mom; she used to hug me all the time and kiss me and told me that she loved me. The memories come flooding back to me and they make me cry. I've missed her so much, the real her. "I love you mom." I whisper to her.

She squeezes me tighter and also whispers, "I love you too, and I'm sorry. For everything that has happened all these years and I'm sorry that I wasn't there for you when you needed me last year. I'm such a terrible mother." My mom telling herself this makes her cry even more, I rub her back and try to calm her down.

"It's not your fault, you've had problems for years and now you're going to make everything better. I forgive you mom. Just promise me that you'll stop drinking, that will make things even better for me. If you truly love me, you'll stop."

She pulls back and looks me straight in the eye, "I swear I will stop drinking and I really, truly, love you sweetie. My Laurbear, forever." When she called me my nickname from when I was 5, I start crying again and my mom holds me in her embrace. I hope that she never lets me go.


	6. Chapter 6

_Chapter 6_

_**3 weeks later**_

Yesterday was the last day of me having to be on these damn crutches, thank God. My school doesn't have any elevators or anything like that so I had to go up the stairs but that took me forever to do. I'm glad that I had Rachel with me in all my classes at school to help me, without her, I would be completely immobilized and take an hour to go to class.

When I was released from the hospital, Rachel was waiting for me at home and demanded to know everything that happened in the woods and at the hospital. When she saw me, she saw my leg and felt so bad for me that she made me dinner that night, an over cooked beef stew. I don't know how anyone could overcook something like that, but, Rachel found a way. Don't get me wrong, it was a nice gesture but some people aren't meant for the kitchen. Of course I told her everything later that night, the part about Daniel being so nice and helping me with Abbey, the part about my mom, and most importantly, about Abbey herself.

My mom and I were getting better with our relationship. There are still things that we need to work on, but, we're getting there and that makes me super happy.

It turns out that Abbey was released from the hospital a couple days after me, she's fine now though. When she saw me at school she gave a gift basket and told me to get better and she told me how grateful she was that I saved her from those woods that night. I told her it was the right thing to do and she would have done the same for me. Abbey still insisted that she owed me one. I don't believe that I deserved it but I thanked her for the basket and might take her up with her offer.

Whenever people ask Abbey what happened in those woods, she doesn't remember anything; it's probably because of the blood loss, she lost half of her blood in total. Abbey thinks it was an animal that attacked her but I get a feeling in my gut that it wasn't and I don't know why. The look of her wound didn't look like an animal and the wound looked too clean. Everyone is believe the story of the animal, after all, what else could it have been? Daniel said that it couldn't have been anything else, and I trust him as much as I trust Rachel's judgment.

Ever since the day of the incident in the woods, Daniel has been so kind and helpful to me. I'm so glad that I had him with me at the hospital when my mom wasn't there. He made me feel comfortable and calm during the whole situation and I thank him for that. I still remember that moment when that nurse named Linda mistakenly took Daniel as my boyfriend, I remember feeling that I wish he was and for a split second I believed he was mine. I know that Daniel and I will never be anything more than friends and there are times I wish that wasn't the case, but, at least the feelings I'm feeling towards him aren't strong.

As I'm retrieving my things my locker and thinking about Daniel, Michelle is on the left side of me leaning on the lockers, and Rebecca is on my other side also leaning against the lockers. I look around me to see if Sophia is with them like she always is, but, she is nowhere to be seen. I turn my attention back to Michelle and she is the first to speak, "You're finally off of those crutches! It was terrible seeing you in the hallway struggling with them. I felt so bad for you."

I smile and roll my eyes, "Thanks Michelle, for the pity party that you're about to make."

"Actually," Michelle straightens up and stands in front of me, "speaking of a party, I'm throwing one tonight for you and Abbey, celebrating the fact that you guys are well and healthy!" She beams me a smile, "Except the fact that what we're having isn't going to be."

I have a quizzical expression on my face, confused by what she meant. "What do you mean what we're having isn't going to be?"

Michelle rolls her eyes and leans her head down to my ear and whispers, "Alcohol. Duh." I nod my head in understanding. "We're having the real deal. Wine, beer, shots, schnapps, you name it, it's going to be there!" The thought of alcohol is making her a little too excited and this worries me. I was never a drinker at parties I may have had a beer or two, just enough to get me buzzed then I went home. "You can invite anyone you want; after all, it's your party!"

"Michelle, I appreciate the gesture and everything, but, I don't want a party for me. That's too much of you, but, thank you for the offer." I shut my locker and start to walk away but she and Rebecca end up following me.

"Fine, it won't be a party for you, it'll be just any other party that everyone throws. Okay? Just please come, I haven't seen you in forever and I want to spend time with you. Please." She gives me puppy dog look and I can't help but cave in.

"Alright!" I exclaim with a smile on my face, "I'll go but on one condition." It's time for me to loosen up and have fun for once.

"What?"

"Make sure there's enough booze for me to pass out drunk." I smile even wider and walk to class, knowing that tonight may actually be a great, fun, night. A night that I have been looking forward to come up for awhile and now here's my chance to try and get my social life back in track.

As I'm walking away, I hear Michelle and Rebecca squeal in excitement for tonight. Knowing those two, they will probably throw a major bash at Michelle's like they always do but this time I'm actually going to one of them and maybe many more in the future.

I head up the stairs, taking my time hoping that Rachel shows up a little later. But she never does. When I get to the top of the stairs, I get a text from Rachel saying that she won't be coming to school today or to the party tonight because she has a severe case of the cold. I panic and think about not going to the party at all since my best friend won't be able to be there with me. The person who has been there when I passed out drunk in a bush for the first, the person who had to stop me from jumping into a pool without any water in it.

I enter my almost vacant Calculus class; the only one sitting in there was Daniel. But he's in there every day. I have an idea when I take my seat next to Daniel, who is toying with his android. "Daniel." I put down my books on the desk. I say in a sweet tone and a grin on my face.

Without taking his eyes off of his phone, "Lauren." He pauses and glances at me. "What do you want?" He already knows that I was going to ask him, but, he doesn't know what yet.

"Can I ask you something?" And hopefully you'll say yes.

He looks over at me with a cautious look, "I'm scared to ask what it is. Whatever it is, it's making you a little too happy. Not that it's a bad thing."

I take a breath and just straight up ask him, "Will you go to Michelle's party with me?" I cross my fingers and wait for his answer.

He doesn't flinch or react to what I've just asked him at first but then he smiles, "Are you asking me out on a date Lauren? I had no idea you felt that way about me."

"NO!" I say a little too quickly which makes him smile even more. "As friends, Daniel! So will you? I haven't been to a party in awhile and I don't want to go alone." I try the look that Michelle pulled on me but it clearly wasn't working on him. "Common, there are going to be shots and everything there." I say trying to persuade him.

He takes a breath as if he's going to say yes, "No." He turns his attention back to his phone. I throw my hands in the air in exasperation. I frown and look towards the board. "No, unless you ask me appropriately."

I furrow my brow, "What do you mean ask you appropriately?"

He looks at me and smiles again and says, "What I mean is kneel down on one knee and say," he clears his throat, "Daniel, my sweet super sexy Daniel. Will you please come with me to Michelle's crazy alcoholic party and take body shots off of me?"

My jaw drops and I smack him on his arm, "I will NOT ask you to take body shots off of me nor will I call you super sexy."

Daniel sighs, "Fine, leave out those parts then we'll have a deal." I huff out a breath and agree. "Now, get down on one knee." I do as he says, "Now say it." Daniel has the biggest smile on his face now, and I just want to smack it off right now.

I sign again, "Daniel, my sweet Daniel." I stop for a moment until he makes me keep going when he tells me to go on, "Will you please come with me to Michelle's crazy alcoholic party?"

"Why, Lauren, yes I will. Thank you for asking me," still having that stupid grin on his face. I immediately get off the floor and sit in my seat. He stops looking at me and yet again puts his attention on his stupid cell phone. I look over at him, "You asshole."


	7. Chapter 7

_Chapter 7_

I pull into Michelle's long, paved, driveway and sure enough I see 20 different cars parked in the yard and in the loop. There are tons of people walking into the place and it looks like no one is planning on leaving sometime soon. I see flashing lights of pink and purple through the paned windows of Michelle's Victorian house, more like a mansion I would say, and all I hear is techno music blaring from speakers. It's a good thing her house is away from the rest of the house on the street or she would be getting arrested by now. Her house is very secluded, her front yet clear and green then her back yard is basically the beginning of the forest behind her house.

I find a place in the yard that seems like it will be easy to get in and out of, so I park my Porsche and walk up to Michelle's porch to stand and wait around for Daniel. I secretly pray that Daniel will be coming tonight and not ditch me here or I'll be forced to have awkward conversations with some of my classmates who are also here. In fact, almost the whole school is here, which makes it 10 times worse. Great.

Everyone is dressed for the occasion; most of the guys I have seen are wearing regular t shirts with baggy jeans and almost all of the girls I have seen are wearing tight short party dresses. Everyone is wearing things what you would see in a club but me. I decided to wear a purple tank top with a nice black leather jacket over it, black skin tight skinny jeans with black studded ankle boots. Simple enough for me.

Just when I think about going back home, I feel a tap on my shoulder; I turn around and see that it's Daniel. I beam a smile towards him, "You came!" He was wearing his regular clothes, dark jeans with a black t shirt and a black leather jacket. I wasn't excited about being here before but now that Daniel's here. He always seems to give my day an extra lift.

"Of course I came, why wouldn't I?"

"I don't know, I just thought that you wouldn't since I asked you to."

He smiles, "It would be the only reason I would go to any party." I blush and smile even more; he makes me get butterflies in my stomach, something that I haven't felt in a very long time. Ever since Ian, I haven't been the same with guys, but that's a whole other story.

We walk into Michelle's and all you see when you walk in is bodies of guys and girls dancing to the music, holding red plastic cups most likely filled with beer, and the grand staircase railing covered with streamers, ribbons, and balloons. There were lights of pink and purple flashing, like the kind of lights you would see in a club. Michelle went full blown on this party and I wonder what the occasion was, and I know it certainly wasn't for me.

I immediately head straight the kitchen with Daniel following me, knowing that that will be the place Michelle is keeping all of the alcohol. I would like to be at least buzzed before I start talking to anyone in this party. Once I arrive in the kitchen, there were only at least 10 people in here and behind an island covered with different types of bottles of alcohol was Michelle, frantically making drinks for her guests. I walk over to her, "Great party Michelle! What are you trying to do exactly?" I see her fiddling with a blender; I go over to it and fix it.

"Hey Lauren! Thanks and I'm trying to make margaritas but it's not working out too well. It tastes like there is hardly any flavor." I see that she only put not even a tablespoon of flavoring into the blender and about half of it tequila and crushed ice.

"Umm, Michelle, you need to add a lot more lime flavoring than that and not drown it in tequila," I point over to the blender. She smacks her head with her hand and she groans, "Sorry, I'm just not on top of things right now. Trying to make sure no one breaks anything and trying to keep everyone happy is a lot of work." She looks so stressed out her hair is a mess and I feel sorry for her.

I sigh, "How about I make drinks and you go upstairs and straighten yourself out, I got this." She smiles, hugs me and thanks me and runs towards the grand staircase. I turn to Daniel, who is just toying with the bottles of vodka. "You can go out to the party while I do this." I turn my attention to the blender and start adding the mix.

"No, it's fine. How about I pour you some shots?" He walks over to the island, "What do you want tequila? Vodka? Name it, it's all here."

"Umm, a shot of vodka is fine, thank you." He pours it into a shot glass he got from the cabinet and hands it over to me when I'm finished making margaritas and pouring the mixture into wine glasses. I raise the shot in the air, "Here's to life," I tilt my head back and throw the vodka in my mouth and swallow, the alcohol burning on its way down. I place the shot glass on the island and pour myself another and another. Then I pour myself a glass of red wine and chug it. "Aren't you going to take some shots or anything?" I ask Daniel, waiting for the alcohol to kick into my system.

He laughs, "I'm actually enjoying watching you drink like you've done this several times." He stops laughing and takes a deep breath, "Probably, just later though, after all, who's going to be the one taking you home?" He gives me a sly sexy look that makes my heart skip a beat.

"I'm spending the night here with Michelle, so you don't need to take me home. That's very nice of you though. I'm not going to be the one to ruin your party mood, so," I grab a bottle of whiskey and pour a shot for him, "Drink up." I smile when I hand him the shot and he gladly throws the sweet, warm, liquid, back.

"Fine, but, I already know that you don't want to stay here." Daniel says as he goes to fridge and takes a bottle of beer.

"Oh and why do you think that?" I say with my flirty voice, the alcohol is starting to kick in and I'm starting to feel the buzz and I embrace it.

Daniel smirks, "I don't think, I know." He takes a swig at his beer, "Well, you don't usually talk to her in school and whenever you do, you look absolutely _miserable_."

It was true. It's not like I hated Michelle, but, things between us are so awkward and I don't want to deal with it. It's why I don't talk or do anything with her anymore. She's changed so much from middle school and I don't things will ever be the same like they were back then. "Fine. You win; you have the privilege of taking me home tonight."

He chuckles, "I never said it was a privilege." I open my mouth in false shock and playfully smack his arm. I leave my hand on his arm, letting it linger there a moment more. I feel the contour of his arm, the muscles bulging. I rip my hand away suddenly not wanting the thoughts of wanting to feel more of him to overpower me.

"Want to dance?" I ask suddenly, I don't know why I asked him that. Especially when a slow, romantic song came on, maybe I just wanted an excuse to be able to be close to him. I secretly curse Michelle for putting this song on her playlist for a party like this and I curse everyone else because they're not complaining about the change in music. I look over at the living room and backyard where everyone is dancing; I see that everyone is slow dancing. I wish that the alcohol would have kicked in by then but unfortunately I'm still sober.

Daniel finishes his beer and throws it in the trash, "Sure," my heart races as he places his hand out for me to take it. I gladly take his hand and he leads me out through the back door into the backyard. We go through the crowd until he stops and turns towards me in the center of the chaos, he places his right hand around my waist and his left hand into my right hand. I instinctively put my left arm onto his arm, and we start to dance to the music. The song we dance to is Just a Kiss by Lady Antebellum. As I listen to the lyrics, they fit this moment so perfectly; it's scary that this might just be fate. As we're looking into each other's eyes, I think to myself, maybe this is all a sign that me and Daniel should be together. We sway together to the music for a couple minutes, content in each other's arms.

As I'm contemplating to how I'm going to make my move, I see Daniel slowly lower his head down to mine. This is it, this is the moment I've been waiting and longing for, I'm so close to tasting him. Our lips are about to touch when suddenly, he pulls back and straightens up abruptly. I frown and wonder why he didn't kiss me, "Are you okay Daniel?" I place my hand lightly on his shoulder for he was facing away from me.

He looks over his shoulder at me, "I'm fine, and I'll be right back." Before I could say anything, he quickly slides through the crowd and is gone. I immediately go after him, calling out his name. I finally reach the house and go to the kitchen to see if I can find him there, by the time I get there. I see no one there but Michelle behind the island in the middle of the kitchen near the counters. I stride over to the island and quickly grab a bottle; I didn't care what it was all I knew is that I needed to get drunk right now. I take 3 shot glasses and fill them up with peppermint schnapps and down each and every one.

"Woah, Lauren. Slow down there before you hurt yourself," Michelle says noticing my intake of alcohol. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." I say as I pour myself another one.

"Clearly there is or else you wouldn't be drinking this much and not have that angry look on your face."

"True," I feel like I need to vent right now and Michelle is the perfect person for me to vent to. "Well, say that you really like someone and you didn't know it till just now-" she interprets me.

"But I have Colin, so I wouldn't need to like someone else."

"Just listen to me, and pretend that you weren't dating him yet." She nods in acknowledge and tells me to go on, "Okay, so, if you really like someone and you didn't till just now and the person that you like tries to kiss you and it's all you ever wanted. But then he just runs away, what would you do and how would you react to that?"

"Oh, I would be so mad but then I would eventually cool off and try talking to him about it when I saw him again. Or you can just forget that it ever happened and move on. Either one is your choice and I can't tell you what to do. Why do you ask?" She thinks about who it could be then she finally figures it out and gasps, "its Daniel isn't it?"

"No!" I deny too quickly and that makes Michelle smile even more, "Fine, it's Daniel. But don't tell anyone or I will personally kill you."

Michelle takes her index finger and crosses her heart. "I promise I won't tell anyone." I get a feeling that Daniel isn't attracted to me that way and make me feel depressed. He probably thinks I'm not good enough for him, which is true. It just hurts to know the truth sometimes. I take one last shot of schnapps in hopes that this will be the shot that will put me in a happy place. Sure enough, it does the trick. I'm officially drunk.

A few minutes late Michelle looks at me like I'm crazy, "Are you okay? You're drunk aren't you?" She gives me a disappointed look but I don't care because the alcohol is making me happy and not as upset with Daniel.

I let the alcohol take over me, I put my thumb and index finger close together almost to the point of touching, "Just a little." I laugh hysterically without any reason.

"You need to go to bed now, it's almost 3 in the morning," Michelle comes over to me and pulls me up and starts guiding me to the staircase.

"Come on Michelle, let the girl have fun," a voice I don't recognize says from behind us and I turn around and see Colin, Michelle's current boyfriend. I think Michelle should listen to him and let me have some fun around here. He comes up to me, "Want to go outside where everyone else is and join the party?"

"Yes!" I say reluctantly, I pull myself away from Michelle and walk away with Colin to the backyard. I look back at her and stick my tongue out. She is speechless at my behavior despite me drunk and uncoordinated and probably because of Colin not agreeing with her. Oh well, you can't always get what you want. She then eventually calls out Colin's name but we ignore her.

Once Colin and I reach outside we dance with each other, but, not close like Daniel and I were and the song was some sort of techno song. We dance together not that long, only about 10 minutes or so and then Colin said he wanted to talk to me in private so we head deep into the woods, Colin leading the way. At one point I stumbled and swayed because of the alcohol and Colin helped me up a few times.

Eventually, Colin and I reach a huge tree and we stop there to talk, "What did you want to talk about Colin? Let's get this over with so we can go back to partying!" I turn into a party girl when I'm drunk sometimes or I can be a happy drunk or a serious drunk, those drunks that don't want to do anything and just sleep.

He smirks at me and says, "You're really cute you know that?"

I laugh, "Thankssssssssssssssssssssssss but no. You're Michelle's boyfriend; you're supposed to think she's cute."

"I can think anyone is cute whether or not I'm dating someone, plus, Michelle and I are having some problems in our relationship so I don't care what I do."

I laugh again for no reason, "What are you going to that you don't care about?"

He smirks again, trying to be sexy and seductive but he's no Daniel. "This." He instantly puts his hands on either side of my face and smashes his lips against mine. And I return the kiss, not thinking clearly. I think of Daniel the whole time we're kissing then I pull away after a minute of kissing knowing what I did was wrong, sober or not. I made my friend's boyfriend cheat on her.

"I should probably get back to the party now." I start to walk away but he grabs my arm in protest. This isn't going to turn out good at all.

"Why don't you stay and we can have some fun?" It was a question that he didn't want me to answer to; he pushes me against the trees and crushes his lips to mine again. I try fighting him off but he tightens his grasp around me, trapping me in his embrace. I try to get him off my face but he just doesn't want to give up. Then, he placed his hand down into my tank top and under my bra, groping my breast. I try to scream but his tongue and mouth is preventing me not to.

Suddenly, someone comes up behind Colin and pulls him off of me and I fall to the ground. The next thing I see is Colin being slammed into a tree and being held up there with a pair of hands clinging to his shirt. "Are you okay?" the person calls to me, and I instantly recognize the voice, it's Daniel.

I nod and whisper, "Yes." I'm still drunk and it's affecting me on how to take this situation. Should I run away and report Colin to the police or should I just let Daniel handle him? I chose letting Daniel do whatever he wants to Colin.

He turns his attention back to Colin, "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you right now," Daniel says through gritted teeth, he sounds so angered; it's a new side of him that I haven't seen before and it scares me. "I can easily rip out your heart right now and not think twice about it! You got that?" Colin nods, "So let's be smart with our decisions right now shall we?" He nods again in agreement.

"Good," Daniel says and he glances over at me, "Now, go over to Lauren and apologize to her for being such a dick and tell her that it won't happen again." Daniel lets go of him, letting him drop to the ground and Colin immediately comes over to me, "I'm sorry Lauren that I was being such a dick, it won't happen again." He says this in a monotone voice.

Daniel then grabs Colin again and holds him up against the tree, then; Daniel punches Colin in the gut so hard that he loses his breath. "Now, forget that this ever happened and go home. And you will buy Lauren a dozen roses and they should be on her doorstep by tomorrow night." He lets Colin reply with another calmed monotone voice simply just saying yes. Daniel releases his grasp on Colin and comes over and grabs my hand and starts guiding me out of the woods, away from Colin.

Half way out of the woods, I stop and I rip my hand out of his grasp. Remembering earlier about the almost kiss between us, I was mad at him. He stops and turns around and just stares at me, waiting for me to say something. "What the hell was that earlier? You just left me!"

"I'm sorry, I'll explain everything you want me to in the car. I'm taking you home." He says it like it's going to happen. Well guess what Daniel, it's not.

"I'm not going home! Not until I get answers. Right here and right now!"

"I promise that I'll tell you whatever you want to know in the car. Final offer." He's so stubborn and won't let me have my way at all. I give up and I might as well stop trying to fight Daniel, he always gets him way in the end.

"Fine! Let's go now." He tries to grab my hand again but I move my hand away from him, "I'm a big girl I can walk on my own without any help." He just walks ahead and I follow him until we get to my car and he pulls out my set of keys. "Why are you taking _my_ car? And how the hell do you have my keys?"

"Well, you don't want to get interrogated by your mom asking you where your car is do you. And as for me having your keys, they fell on the ground back there and I picked them up. Are you done with the questions now?"

I give a short laugh, "You wish don't you? Nope, I'm just getting started." He opens the passenger door for me and I go in without any protest. And then he goes to the other side to the driver's side and gets in, puts the keys in the ignition and starts the car. We're silent when he backs the car up and pulls into the street. He's driving the opposite way to where I live, but, I don't ask questions and let him drive. Even though I'm mad at him I can still trust him and that's probably going to kick me in the ass later along the way.

Daniel breaks the silence between us, "What do you want to know?"


	8. Chapter 8

_Chapter 8_

I look over at Daniel, "For starters, what was that back in the woods with Colin? You didn't deserve to hurt him like that."

Daniel looks at me in disbelief, "He didn't deserve to get hurt? Lauren, he hurt you and I know for a fact what he was planning on doing to you. He's lucky he isn't dead right now in those woods!"

"No one deserves to die, Daniel." I simply say.

"He does, why are you even defending him anyway? He could have raped you and you're acting like it's nothing." When he said the word rape, it made me stiffen. Daniel noticed this and his grip tightens around the steering wheel.

"I guess I'm in disbelief, you're right. He could have raped me and thank you for coming in at just the right time and saving me from Colin." He looks over at me again and says, "You're welcome." I take a deep breath, "It's just when you think about it, out of everyone he chose me. ME! God must hate me, why does everything want to hurt me?" I burst into tears. This situation reminds me of a part of my past that I would like to completely erase from my mind for good. But it can't, it's forever in my head, scaring me for life, completely unchangeable.

Just then, we pull into a driveway of another huge Victorian house just like Michelle's, except this one has a garden in the front of the house. Daniel parks my car in front of the house; he looks over at me with sympathy in his eyes. He reaches over to me and puts his hands on either sides of my face and looks into my eyes, "It'll be alright, you'll be alright. No one hates you, and things will get better for you. I know it. You just have to believe it for yourself." He sighs, "You're going to soon forget what happened earlier tonight with Colin, I promise." Suddenly I feel a calming wave flow in me and I feel better as if none of this happened and I forget what I was crying about, it must be the alcohol.

He gets out of the car and opens the passenger door for me and gives me his hand. I gladly take it and get out the car. "Where are we?"

He glances over at me and says, "This is my home. It's been remodeled inside so the outside doesn't exactly match the inside." He walks up to door and gets his keys out to unlock it while I look at the garden in the front. It's so beautifully lit by the moonlight, with the roses, orchids, and lilies. All you hear is the steady flow of a stream nearby making it so peaceful.

Suddenly, I feel light headed but I brush it off as the alcohol coming back and biting me in the ass. So I ignore it and continue looking at the lit garden, but, suddenly everything fades to black and the last thing I hear is Daniel yelling my name.

* * *

><p>My eyes flutter open and I jump out of the bed immediately, I look around the room frantically; I start to take in my surroundings. The room I'm in is a bedroom, clearly with the bed. There are 2 black dressers on either side of the room, both huge; I turn on a lamp on one of the bedside tables on either side of the king sized bed, to light up the room. One wall out of 3 other white walls of the room is entirely glass with a huge red curtain covering it. I notice that there are 2 doors; one is bond to get me out of here. I walk over to the directly across the room from the bed, but, when I open it all I see is a walk in closet full of men's clothes.<p>

I run towards the other door and fling it open, but, when I try to run out the door I run into someone, a naked someone. I fall to the tiled floor easily but Daniel doesn't fall, he's completely stable. I look up at him and he has a look of surprise across his face, but I don't look at his face for long as my gaze lingers down lower onto his body. His beautifully sculpted abs, and his muscular arms but as I look lower, I notice that his hair is wet and that he's wearing a white towel around his waist, covering his… area.

"I have to admit you slightly surprised me, just slightly though," Daniel says not wanting to admit that he was really surprised. He extends his arm out to me and offers me his hand; I don't take it and get up on my own. Then, suddenly, I have an overpowering feeling of nausea. I immediately run to the trash bin I saw in the corner of the room and vomit.

I hear Daniel rushing over to me for aid but I stop him with a hand gesture and he backs off. Once I'm done, I stand up straight and ask Daniel, "Where's your bathroom?" Hoping that I didn't have vomit all over my mouth.

"Go to your right and then it should be the second door on your left." I give him my thanks and he nods in reply. Then, I rush out of his bedroom as quickly as I could and follow his directions. I open the door that should be the door to the bathroom and sure enough, it is.

I look at myself in the mirror and see that I have a little amount of my stomach contents in my hair. I run the faucet and place my fingers into the warm running water and rinse out the vomit from my hair. Once I finish cleaning out my hair, I turn the faucet off. I shout to Daniel, hoping that he will be able to hear me. "Do you have any extra toothbrushes?"

I assume he hears me because he comes out of his bedroom fully dressed now, and comes into the bathroom. He turns into another area of the bathroom and I hear him pulling a drawer out, coming back with a toothbrush in hand. And he hands it to me and leaves without saying a word, "Thank you!" I call out to him. "You're welcome." I hear him faintly call back and shortly, I hear his bedroom door shut close.

I turn the faucet back on and place the toothbrush under the water, rinsing it before I use it. I put the toothpaste that Daniel also brought out, on the brush and place it into my mouth scrubbing and scrubbing my teeth. After a minute of brushing my teeth, I spit out the foam of the toothpaste into the sink and rinse out my mouth with water. I grab the mouth wash I see on the counter and I pour some into my mouth without my mouth or lips touching the bottle. I gargle and swish the mouth wash in my mouth until I had enough and spit it out. I then rinse the sink clean with the water and my mouth once more. Then, I throw away the used toothbrush in the trash bin across the bathroom and walk out to head over to Daniel's room.

Once I get to the closed door, I lightly knock onto the wooden door. "Come in," Daniel calls to me. I accept the invite by opening the door and when I do, I see him lying on his back with his hands behind his head, smirking at me. He then sits up and scoots to the edge of the bed, he pats the spot next to him with his hand, "Sit down next to me."

I listen to him and sit down on the spot he had just patted. We stay silent for a moment him staring at me, and me staring at the wall. I can feel his eyes bore into me I couldn't take it anymore, "Why are you staring at me?"

He doesn't take his eyes off of me, "I'm waiting for you to say something, and I was so sure you were going to bombard me with questions." He looks away, "But I guess I was wrong." Daniel gets up and just stands there waiting for me to respond.

"Well, I thought you were going to tell me without having me ask questions. But I guess I was wrong too," I breathe a sign, "So what happened last night? I remember going to the party and I know that I got drunk but nothing after that and I wake up this morning on your bed? What the hell happened? Did we have sex-?"

"No," He says, interrupting me, "We didn't do anything remotely close to that, at all. So don't worry about it," he walks over to his dresser and opens one of the drawers, "I found you passed out in Michelle's bathroom and I decide you weren't in any condition to go home, and I knew you wouldn't want to stay with her. So, I took you here to sleep off the alcohol and now you're in my bedroom talking about last night." He pulls out a watch and I watch him as he puts it on his left wrist.

"I don't believe you, you left during the party; you never came back. That part I remember clearly." I give him a glare because I remember he ran away from me after the almost kiss and I wish he would have done it so it wouldn't be as awkward right now.

"I never left! Well, okay, I left you but I never left the property, so, technically I did come back or else you wouldn't be sitting here talking to me right now." He comes back to the bed and sits next to me.

"I still don't believe you. And I'm still mad at you!" I'm mad at him for leaving me alone, for not kissing, for everything that happened last night.

"What did I do to make you so mad at me?" A look of confused is across his face, he's lying. He knows damn well why I'm mad and he's playing stupid with me right now. Not a smart decision of you right now Daniel.

"You know what you did! So stop trying to act like your innocent because you're lying to me right now and I don't appreciate!"

"I genuinely don't know what you are talking about," Again, with the look on his face, then he starts thinking about what he did wrong and his expression turns into seriousness and is mouth turns into an 'O'. "This is about the kiss isn't it?"

"Ding ding, correct! But the only thing is it never happened!" I can feel my face getting red from frustration, "Why didn't you kiss me? Am I not your type or what?"

"I didn't kiss you, not because you're not my type, I don't have a type of specific person when it comes down to that. I didn't kiss you because I didn't want to admit that I'm feeling things toward you that I shouldn't. I didn't know what to do, so I left."

I didn't know what to say, I'm shocked. He admitting to me that he likes me, more than a friend. That much is clear; out of everyone he could have feelings for he chooses me. The same girl that has so many problems from the past, the girl is so dysfunctional and doesn't know if she could be able to love again. "Are you saying that you like me? Not as a friend but like like me?"

He gives out a small laugh, and smirks, "Yes, why are you so surprised?"

"I like you too." I smile at him, "And I guess it's just because who would like a girl like me? A girl is so dysfunctional and screwed up and has trust issues. You don't deserve me." I get up and walk away to the door. But before I could open the door, Daniel steps in front of me, preventing me to.

"Lauren, you've got it all wrong. I'm the one that you don't deserve but somehow, you like me too." I try to get past him but he puts his hands on my arms, holding me in place. "Just listen to me, I want to be with you so badly, you have no idea. I don't want to hurt you like you have been in the past, but; I want to be the one that heals you from all of that. I want to be the one who protects you and cares for you, I want you." I start to cry from the happiness and sadness that fills me. I want to be with him with all my heart, but, I'm afraid I'll screw the whole relationship up. And if I do that, I'm afraid I'll lose him forever.

Before I could tell him what I felt, he crushes his lips to mine. His lips are so soft and I don't want to pull away, ever. I can't believe that we're kissing, all of the times I've dreamt about it, the taste of him, it's happening right here and now. I reluctantly return the kiss with the same amount of passion he's putting into it. He places his hands gently on my face and I put my hands over his, encouraging him to let them stay there. I feel the warmth of him all over me and it makes me feel amazing, safe, and secure.

I pull my face away from his and look into his eyes. Those blue eyes sparkled with excitement and passion; I don't want to look away from them and I don't want to tell him what I'm about to tell him, "I can't." I whispered, "I can't hurt you, I don't want to ever do that to you. I know that my past is going to affect the thought of you and put doubt into my head. I don't want to put you through that if I chose my head instead of you. If that makes sense."

Daniel puts his forehead on mine, "I understand and I don't want you to tell me anything of your past. I can see that it hurts you and I don't want be upset." We're talking so quietly now, that I can hear the leaves outside blowing.

"Its fine, Daniel, I feel that if we want to move forward with our relationship, you need to know." I take a deep breath and my eyes start to water when I look at the floor, not wanting to look him in the eye, "I met this guy named Ian when I was 15 while he was 20. At the time, Ian and I were a secret, no one knew about us, not even Rachel. I thought I was falling in love with him and we were happy together," I look up at him and he doesn't say anything, so, I go on, "Until one night when we were getting… intimate in his car. I noticed that it was late and I needed to get home before my mom suspected anything going on. I told him to take me home but he ignored me and kept kissing me. I kicked and screamed at him begging him to stop and then he threatened to kill me if I talked again, so I didn't. And then-and then," I finally let myself cry and start to sob, I can't bare to say it, but I do, "He raped me." I put my face into my palms out of shame, "It was my entire fault."

I then feel Daniel's arms wrap around me, holding me in his warm embrace. I feel his hand running up and down my back, trying to soothe me. He whispers in my ear, "It's not your fault, at all. It was Ian's you had no choice and you shouldn't have to go through that, ever. I wish I could take away your pain if I could."

I continue crying, "It was my fault, I'm the one who let him do it to me, and I'm the one who made the stupid decision to be with him. I'm so stupid."

"You're not! You were blinded by love, everyone can be, you were blinded by your feelings toward him that you couldn't see the bad in him. You couldn't control your feelings, it happens." I don't respond to him because I know that he's right, maybe it wasn't my fault entirely. I cry more in his arms and we're like that for a long time. Until I finally calm down and eventually stop crying.

I pull away from his embrace and wipe away my tears. "Thank you."

He frowns, "For what?"

"For everything, for you being there for me in the woods, for you being here for me now, and just for being an amazing friend. Or boyfriend I should say." I smile. I decided to give Daniel a chance, I never liked anyone so much in a long time and I feel that he really can make me become myself again.

Daniel smirks, "Are you trying to ask me out Lauren?"

I laugh, "No, you being the gentleman, you should be asking me out. So, get down on one knee and say 'Lauren Kathleen Jones, will you do me the pleasure of being my girlfriend?" I smile wide, I feel relieved that I got the past off of my chest... for now at least. I feel that I can trust Daniel with anything, and that he's true to his word. But there's something in the back of my head telling me that there's something about him that I don't know and should be aware about. I just brush off the feeling and let myself be happy for once.

Daniel laughs and obeys me and lowers himself down on one knee. Before he repeats what I told him to say, he holds onto my hands, "Lauren Kathleen Jones, will you do me the pleasure of becoming my girlfriend and making me one happy man?" He gives me his stud smile, the smile that makes me skip a beat and I can't help but cry from happiness.

"Yes!" I shout happily. He rises to his feet and before he can even have time to think, I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him to me. "I'm yours," I whisper to him and I jump wrapping my legs around, and kiss him with as much passion as we had in our first kiss. He wraps his arms around me and holds me up, and he kisses me back reluctantly.


	9. Chapter 9

_Chapter 9_

_**1 month later**_

I arrive at school after spending all weekend with Daniel, my boyfriend. It's so weird to say that Daniel is now my boyfriend even though it's been a week of us dating, it sounds too good to be true. And when I left his house shortly after our first kiss as boyfriend and girlfriend, he said the same thing to me.

Yesterday, we spent the whole day together at his house, talking and just being with each other. I found out a few more things about Daniel, his parent's died when he was young and lived with his grandparents until he was 18, then he decided to move back to his hometown here in Lamia. He spent his whole life savings on his own house; he works at the local bar and grill to keep up with the bills.

I had told him my whole life story, about my dad, the problems I had with my mom, I had already told him about Ian, and I told him about my relationship with Michelle and Rachel. He listened to every word I had to say and I love how he actually listens to me. And I love how I can talk about anything and everything with him, good or bad.

We've spent as much time together as we possibly could which has been practically every day. So far, nothing has gone wrong between us, it's only having gotten better each and every day and I hope it stays that way. Daniel is nothing like Ian ever was, he's something else and I don't want to ever let him go, never. I don't think I would be able to handle it, I would slip into a deep depression again and I don't want my mom to go through that with me ever again. Even though I know Daniel well enough not to do anything to hurt me, I still can't help but have these thoughts. Plus, my mom and Daniel get along so well since she met him the 2nd time a couple days after Daniel and I officially started dating:

Daniel and I came back to my house after spending most of the day over his house cuddling together and watching movies, Daniel was about to meet my mom as my boyfriend. Daniel wasn't nervous at all to meet my mom; he said that pretty much every parent in town loves him so my mom wouldn't be a problem… cocky much.

In the end, Daniel was right; he had no problem with my mom. He was natural and himself with my mom, he was polite to her when it was needed and they joked around about me. He and my mom hit it off really well and she pulled me aside while Daniel was over to tell me he was a keeper. I couldn't help but smile to that, because that was the same thing I was thinking and feeling.

Now, Daniel officially meeting Rachel was an entirely different story. Rachel held grudges, and she remembers when he made my life more miserable that one month. But I got over that, clearly Rachel hadn't… she interrogated him about him being an asshole and just made things awkward between the 3 of us together.

Now, a month of Daniel and me dating, Rachel has grown comfortable with him and got to actually see how great of a guy he truly is. Rachel is now okay with Daniel and me dating, not completely Rachel approved but close, I'm so glad that she has tried to like him and now, after all of the effort she put in, it's working. She actually likes him, but, right now as Rachel and I are walking to our lockers, she's complaining of Daniel keeping me all to him.

"Ever since you guys have been dating, you two have been spending every weekend together. It's not fair! It's like you completely forgot that you have a best friend," Rachel pouts.

"Hey, that's not true; remember I went to the store with you last weekend to help you pick out shoes to go with your new jeans?" I say innocently, even though I know what she's saying is right. I sort of have been abandoning her lately, and I'll make it up to her as soon as possible.

"Yeah, one day out of the whole weekend and month. When can we actually hang out a _whole_ weekend together?" Before I can respond, she jumps up in excitement, "I know! How about this weekend? The town is having the 140th anniversary of Lamia being officially founded back in whatever date it was."

"In 1871, don't you ever pay attention in History?" I say jokingly, I don't know what Rachel is going with this but I left her keep talking.

"Yes," I give her a doubtful look, "Fine, sometimes okay?" She sighs, "Anyways, the town is holding this big ball, in the town hall and everything this Saturday. It's going to be epic and everyone is going to be there, since the school decided to make this ball the prom. The only thing is that you have to dress up really nice, like in ball gowns of course. I think the guys just need to wear tuxedos, nice fancy suits. So, what do you say?" She clasps her hands together in excitement, waiting impatiently for my answer.

That's something different; I've never been to a ball before, it could be fun. But on the other hand, I don't want to go without Daniel; I would feel like I've neglected him. Maybe Rachel will let me bring him as my date. I hesitate before answering, "Alright, fine." She squeals in excitement, I hold up my finger and she stops, "On one condition."

She rolls her eyes, "You and your conditions, what is it now?"

"You have to let me bring Daniel with me," I smile, and she groans in frustration, before she complains I suggest something, "Daniel can find you a date, I promise you that he will. Maybe he has some hot friends in town this weekend?"

Her eyebrows rise in interest, I know what she's thinking, the way Daniel looks, and his friends are bound to look equally hot and sexy. Good thing I brought up finding her a date or else she wouldn't have ever agreed to me bringing Daniel. We plan on shopping in Oak Park tonight for dresses at Elegant Lady, and whatever else we needed for the Lamia Ball.

I turn around to head upstairs to my Calculus class. When I turn around, I almost hit someone who was standing right behind me, scaring me. I immediately jump but relax shortly as my brain realizes, its Daniel standing in front of me. "Oh, it's you," I put my hand to my heart, "You scared me."

Daniel smirks and grabs the hand resting on my heart and we start slowly walking up the stairs, "You get scared very easily, you know that?"

I smile, "I know, I don't know why. I guess I was just born that way." I pause and remember Rachel inviting me to the Lamia Ball, "So, I have something to ask you," I say with a seductive smile on my face, hoping that will persuade him to go.

He looks over at me warily and laughs, "When you smile like that, it means you want something, and that makes me nervous because whenever you want something it never turns out good. So, what is it that you want?"

"Hey, that's never true," Daniel gives me a doubtful look and raises his eyebrows and I laugh, "Okay, it's true, most of the time at least." I take in a deep breath, "Well, Rachel invited me to the Lamia Ball this Saturday and I was wondering if you wanted to go with me, as my date."

He groans, "You know how I feel about balls, dances and all. I've gone to so many that I've lost count and have grown tired and bored from them." My face falls, but then perks right up again we he says this, "But since you want to go, I'll go too. Maybe I can show you a few moves." He winks which makes me laugh.

We finally reach the classroom, which is completely empty except the two of us. I wrap my arms around his neck as he wraps his arms around my waist, "Thank you." I give him a peck on the lips, with my face still close to his Daniel about to kiss me, I smile as I whisper against his lips, "But there's another thing."

He pulls his face away and turns his head towards the board, "I knew it, there's always a catch." He looks back about me and asks, "So, what's the other thing?"

I bite my lip. "You have to bring a friend or someone as a date for Rachel. It was the only way you were allowed to come with me without facing the wrath of Rachel." I give out a small laugh, hoping that he has someone in mind for Rachel. "Oh, and you need to get yourself a tuxedo," I say smiling.

He smiles, "Actually, a friend of mine is coming to town Friday and staying for the weekend. I can ask him if he'll want to go with Rachel. As for the tuxedo, I secretly have a closet full of them, it's a fetish, but don't tell anyone." He places his index finger on his lips as he shushes.

I laugh, "Don't worry I'm good at keeping secrets. Mum's the word." I say as I put my index finger and thumb on the left side of my lips and move them across to the right, zipping my lips. I place my hand back around Daniel's neck, and as he leans down to kiss my lips, but, instead, kissing my forehead.

"Are you sure you want me to go this ball? I may cause a sex riot you know…" He smiles, knowing I wanted him to kiss my lips, he is such a tease.

I laugh, "I somehow doubt that."

"That's because you haven't seen me in a tux," he saying with his cocky half smile thing that he always does; which makes him look even hotter. I pull his hair, hinting Daniel that I want him to kiss me. He leans down towards my forehead and I close the distance between our lips.

* * *

><p>On our way to Oak Park, Rachel talks about nothing but Daniel's friend and how excited she is to see him and what design and color dress she's going to wear to impress him at the Lamia Ball. I was excited for the ball too surprisingly. Maybe it was because Daniel was going to be my dance partner or it was because I'll get to see him in a tuxedo. I mean, he looked pretty excited to get to be in a tuxedo since he'll cause a 'sex riot'. We'll see about that Daniel.<p>

We finally get to the store, Elegant Lady, a bridal and tuxedo shop near Detroit, it's filled with almost any dress for almost any occasion. Rachel and I have gone here in the past to buy dresses for homecoming freshmen year. The dresses aren't cheap but they are worth the money.

Once we walk in to the store, we see that there is hardly anyone there, only two ladies up in the front desk. One who has short gray hair, bone skinny with a dress suit on, and the other one who is a little more on the heavier side with short brown hair that is starting to fade to gray. They look up immediately when we enter the store, the one with the short gray hair stands up from the front desk and greets us, "Welcome to Elegant Lady, my name is Marie, how may I help you this evening?" She says this as she walks around the desk to step in front of us.

Rachel is the one who responds with a fake smile on her face like she does when she meets anyone, "Yes, my friend and I are looking for dresses and shoes for a ball this weekend, and we want to stick with nice dark colors. So if you can help us find some dresses that would be great."

Marie smiles to us, "Of course, follow me." She turns and starts walking through the aisles of dresses and we follow. As Rachel and I walk through the aisles, Rachel eyes the wedding dresses. I know that it's been a dream of hers to have a picture perfect wedding ever since she could learn to talk. She leans towards me and whispers, "Let's go look at the wedding dresses! Please!"

"No." I simply tell her, "We're here to buy our ball gowns, not for wedding gowns. Maybe after we find our gowns we can look at the wedding dresses." I feel like a mom telling her child that she can't have a puppy or something. Rachel's obsession to plan her dream wedding is completely ridiculous and not to mention, too early for her.

She leans away from me and pouts, "Fine."

We keep following Marie until we come to a halt when we reach the front of the changing rooms where there are chairs. Marie stops and turns to us, still smiling gestures towards the chairs, "You can sit if you would like." We walk over and take a seat. "Now, is there any specific style and color you girls would like? Or any requirements you would like to tell me?"

I respond this time, "We would like to keep with the dark colors, like a nice deep blue or dark purple or a dark red. As for the style, we would like a silhouette ball gown with a nice sweetheart neck line, please." I look over to Rachel, "Anything else we should add?"

Rachel nods, "For my dress, I would like some sparkle to it if possible please."

Marie nods, "And what sizes are you two?"

Rachel and I look at each other and she responds, "We're the same size, we are both size 4's."

Marie nods again, "Alright, I'll be back with some dresses for you two to try on."

Rachel and I sit in the chairs in silence at first until Rachel asks me, "What do you think Daniel's friend is going to look like?"

I roll my eyes towards her, "I don't know, like a human being."

She gives out a small laugh, "No, seriously, what do you think he's going to look like? This is going to be my first time in months I'm going to go dancing with a guy; he needs to be looking good."

I roll my eyes again, "Rachel, you're not going to find the love of your life if you base it all on looks. You could meet a really nice guy who doesn't look good and you should be okay with that." Sometimes it annoys when she does this, looks at me, I'm not perfect and somehow I manage to find someone who really likes me. Maybe Rachel should be like Daniel.

"I know, I know. But, if there's no attraction to the person, then what would appeal to you? You know what I'm trying to say?" Rachel looking innocently at me, she knows that these kind of discussions make me upset.

"Their personality should be what appeals to you Rachel. I know that we're young but eventually Rachel, you won't base everything off of looks in the future when it's time for you to settle down. And I'm saying this to you as nicely as possible and I don't mean to be mean about it."

The way Rachel was looking at me, tells me that I was right and she stops talking to me. Not that she's mad, but, she's taking my words into thought. Then she says, "That's easy for you to say, you have the hottest guy in town as your boyfriend. Scratch that, the hottest guy in the world."

"Daniel isn't that hot," I murmur, lying. Daniel is the most handsome person I've ever met and I won't meet anyone as hot as him ever again. I'm just trying to make a point to Rachel.

"You and I both know that you're lying right now. If that wasn't the case, every girl in school wouldn't be going after him like cats in heat." I know that girls flirt with him once and awhile but I didn't know it was all the time. And this makes me so jealous; no one should try to get with anyone if they are in a relationship. Do people not respect that anymore?

Before I could respond, Marie comes back with dresses draping over her arms. Rachel immediately jumps out of her seat in excitement at the thought of trying dresses on. I just remain in my seat patiently, not really caring about finding a dress, just that I need one for the ball.

Marie walks over to a rod and hangs the dresses on them and smiles, "Now, who's first?" I raise my hand first, get up and walk over to Marie and the dresses. I just want to get this over with already, the worst part in finding any type of clothing is trying them on.

"What dress would you like to try on first?" Marie asks me, I point to a dark blood red dress, she grabs it from the rack and walks to the dressing room, and I follow. Once we get into the dressing room, she tells me to take off my clothes and I do what she says. When I'm only in my bra and underwear, she helps me into the dress and ties the back of it. I don't know what I look like in the dress yet since there are no mirrors, so, once she is finished, we walk out of the dressing room.

Rachel looks at me from top to bottom with no expression on her face, "Love the color, there's something about the design that's off." I turn and look into the mirror, and I find out that Rachel is right, the color of the dress is gorgeous but the style and beading on the bodice isn't right to me.

Marie grabs another dress without me approving of it or not and walks off into the dressing room. I immediately follow and take off the dress and help me into the other dress, tying the laces on the back. Once she finishes I step out and step in front of Rachel, "Well, what do you think?" I look at Rachel's face and she looks speechless. I turn around and look into the full body mirror.

Rachel had a right to be speechless. The dark blue, strapless gown has pleating draped down the bodice and is embroidered with lace shapes on the V-empire waist and outlines the sweetheart neckline. And the ball gown skirt is full of tucks and gathered and accented by embroidered lace. The color compliments my skin tone and the dress fits me like a glove. By looking at this dress on me right now, I can tell that this is the one.

I can see myself dancing with Daniel all night in this dress and I know that he'll love it. "I love it," I say smiling at the thought of Daniel and I dancing, "This is the one."

"Daniel's going to get a boner when he sees you at the ball!" Rachel suddenly blurts out. Marie and I open our mouths in shock. "Rachel!" I yell. This is so embarrassing that Rachel would say that in public. But I get over the embarrassment and anger I feel towards her, I blush and start laughing.

I calm down a minute or two later and I finally say with a big smile on my face, "Please don't say anything like that ever again in front of me, okay?"

Rachel smiles and salutes, "Yes ma'am!" We laugh together a little bit longer until we look over at Marie and see her tapping her foot impatiently and she has a frustrated look on her face. Rachel and I immediately stop laughing and apologize, moving onto Rachel's dress fittings. Eventually, Rachel picks out a nice dark colored green ball gown with a sweetheart neckline and an open back with lace, and beading all over.

Rachel and I decide to buy the sample dresses instead of waiting for the actual fitted dresses. Once we are done checking out, we start walking over to Rachel's car when we decided that we'll walk over to the nearby Walgreens for some fake nails to wear on the night of the ball. I give Rachel my dress to put away in her car and we decide that I'll go ahead and go while she places the dresses into her car.

I start walking on the sidewalk towards the direction of Walgreens. As I'm walking I hear another pairs of steps behind me, I look back and see that no one is there. I turn my attention back to the sidewalk ahead of me, and keep walking but this time I quicken my stride.

Suddenly, I hear footsteps again, but this time, they sound like they're running. I turn my head again and see that a man in all black chasing me, I immediately start running like hell. Thoughts running through my mind, who would be chasing me? What do they want?

I start losing my breath but I push myself forward. I turn my head again to see if the man is still chasing me, but, no one is there. I put my attention back to what's in front of me, and suddenly I run into a hard warm body and as I look at the person I ran into, I realize that it's the man who was chasing me.

Before I could scream, he covers my mouth with his huge hand and pulls out a handkerchief type of thing out of the front pocket of his black jacket and quickly covers my mouth and nose with it. With my heart racing, the light slowly starts to fade to black until I'm completely in the darkness.


	10. Chapter 10

_Chapter 10_

I wake to something cold and wet soaking through my clothes and hitting my body with some force. My eyes immediately open and I take in my surroundings. It's almost pitched black in the tiny room I'm in, only two candles illuminating the dark rooms' dark green walls. I hear the creaking of the hard wood floor under the weight of the two different pair of footsteps I hear walking in the room. As I become more conscious, I hear whispering from a distance but I can't understand anything that the female and male voices are saying.

I sit up and the wood creaks under my weight the voices clearly hear this for the whispers stopped and I hear the creaking of the wood as they come closer to me. I back up quickly until I hit the wall behind me, I'm trapped, and I have nowhere to go. My heart races as the figures get closer and closer to me, fearing that they're going to kill me. I'm doomed; I wish I could tell my mom and Rachel how much I love them. I wanted to say goodbye to Daniel and tell him how much he means to me, I want a last kiss and one last embrace with Daniel. Now I can't because I'm about to die and be reunited with my father up in heaven or wherever it is when we die.

As one of them got closer, I could see a glimpse of the female, all I could tell of her was that she had blonde hair, pale skin, and the frame of her face, which looked to be gorgeous. Once the female got up to me she put her hand around my throat and pulled me up on the wall, holding me up there with just the hand around my neck. I gasp for air as she closes her hand tighter, I try to push her hand off of my throat by putting both of my hands around her wrist and try to push. But her hand doesn't budge.

"How do you know Gustave Chevalier?" The female says in a demanding voice with a French accent.

A look of confusion comes over my face. I have never heard of that name ever in my life, if I had I'd most likely remember it, it's an unusual name. "Who's Gustave?" I struggle to say with the lack of oxygen.

"Don't play stupid," she tightens her grasp, "The man that you have been in a relationship with for a month now hasn't it?"

I still have a confused look on my face. She means Daniel but she must have mistaken him for someone else. "You mean my boyfriend Daniel Westfall?"

Out of nowhere the female starts laughing darkly and drops me. I collapse to the wooden floor that creaks loudly as I make contact with it, making a booming echo. I take in a huge intake of air, gasping. I wrap my left hand around my throat to try and soothe the pain. "Gustave didn't do a good job making a good believable name did he?" She says to herself.

Once my breathing starts to return to its normal rate, I ask frowning, "What do you want with my boyfriend?" She better not do anything to him, hurting me is one thing but if she did anything to Daniel, that's not okay with me.

What I can see, she smirks, "What I want with _my_ boyfriend is that I want him to myself after all these years of tracking him down. For 176 years to be exact."

Stalker ex girlfriend I immediately think to myself. And 176 years? She must be psychotic too. "What? 176 years, that can't be right?"

"Oh, it is. Gustave and I are vampires, or Daniel he's known as now. But, I'm sure you had already suspected that, with the whole rosary thing that happened," the female says nonchalantly,

How did she know about that? Daniel and I were the only people in the parking lot. Unless she was there watching from the woods, the day of Abbey's attack. I stiffen. She must have attacked Abbey, what a bitch. I glare at her, "You were the one who left Abbey well as dead in those woods weren't you?"

I can see that she has a dark smile on her face and laughs, "No, actually that part wasn't me. I wouldn't have been so sloppy with it. That was Henry over there." She points behind her to the other figure keeping his distance.

"I don't believe that either of you are vampires and I don't believe that Daniel is a vampire either, you're psycho." I stand up and she doesn't stop me, "If you'll excuse me, I just want to go home." And I hold my breath as I walk past her. But I don't get very far.

The female tackles me, throws me to the floor and chokes me again; now she's on top of me with her hand around my throat. 'That was a stupid move' I say to myself.

"Listen here, you arrogant bitch, you being with Gustave is screwing everything up between us. I could just kill you but I don't know if Gustave would like that, plus, I would want to make you suffer." She pauses, probably thinking of ways to kill me, while I'm lying under her, trying to get her off of me, but she eventually continues, "So, listen to me and stop trying to fight me."

When she tells me to stop fighting her, I do what she says, not because I needed to but because I wanted to do anything she said. It's like I was in her trance. She continues, "When you go to the ball this Saturday night with Daniel, you'll expose him as a vampire by stabbing him anywhere your choosing except the heart. And with that you'll have your proof that I was right. Do you understand?"

I nod in response, not wanting to talk but just to listen to her like she told me to. "Now, forget everything I had just told you. Forget ever being kidnapped, forget how and why you got in this place, and forget meeting me and Henry when I finish talking. Just know to stab Daniel anywhere except the heart and make it look like you did it on accident."

I feel like I just had a dream or something, my mind was fogged up. I look around in the clearly adjacent house wondering why and how I got here; there was no one here with me. I remember walking to Walgreens and the next thing I know I'm here. Where's Rachel and does she know I'm here? There are so many questions in my head and before anyone or any animals decide to show up, I find my way out of the house and pull out my phone, calling Rachel. She picks up on the first ring.

"Where are you?" She practically screams at me, she sounds like she's going to have a heart attack.

"In all honestly, I have no idea." I say with confusion, I look down the road and see the lights illuminating of the only gas station in Lamia. "Actually, can you meet me at the gas station in Lamia?"

"HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET BACK IN LAMIA?" Before I can say anything, she continues ranting, "I've been calling your phone for the past hour, I went to the Walgreens and you weren't there! I drove around all of Oak Park looking for you! Don't scare me like that EVER again!"

I've never heard Rachel get so worked up ever in my life. "I don't know how I got here; I remember walking on the sidewalk on my way to Walgreens and the next thing I know I'm on the floor of this old abandoned house on the road of the gas station. Where are you now?"

"Daniel and I are still in Oak Park. Don't worry; we'll be there in 30 minutes!" I stop walking at the mention of Daniel. There's a small part of me that at the mention of Daniel that makes me scared, but I shake off the feeling, I shouldn't be afraid of him. And why would he be there with Rachel? I don't remember him ever coming with us and why would he? "Why is Daniel with you?"

"I called him and asked if he picked you up or knew where you are, he said he didn't and he wanted to help me find you." It seemed believable, and I had no rejection to it. "Are you at the gas station now?"

"Almost, in about 5 minutes I will be. Where are you at?"

"On the highway, so it should be about 20 minutes not even," I hear a voice in the background, "Hey; do you want to talk to Daniel?" Again, Daniel's name being brought up brings me a feeling of fear and makes me want to run away. And again I ignore the feeling.

I hesitate before answering and look at my phone, "I can't, my phones about to die. So, I'll be at the gas station waiting for you. Bye." I snap the phone shut, not waiting for her to reply. Just when I did, I reach the entrance part of the gas station. There is hardly anybody there at the gas station only a couple of bikers that look fairly young, tough, and just plain scary. I better avoid them, hoping that the bad luck I carry isn't going to happen with these 2 guys.

I jog into the store to buy a bottle of water with a little snack to go along with it. For some reason, I'm dying of thirst and hunger. Once I walk into the convenient store, I notice that the place is empty except for the guy behind the cashier welcoming me. He is fairly young, probably in his late 20's or early 30's. I give my greetings and head to the back of the store towards the refrigerated. I grab a bottle of Aquafina and as I head to the cashier, I reach for a granola bar underneath the counter.

As the cashier, a look of the name tag says his name is Mike, rings up my things; I look over at the bikers again and ask Mike, "Do you know those guys?" I nod over to the bikers.

Mike looks over to where I nod and replies with wariness in his voice, "No, but, they have been out there for hours. Your total is 3 dollars and 25 cents," I hand over a 5 and he opens his drawer to give me my change, he continues, "They look like trouble, I recommend staying away from them and not talking to them." He gives me a friendly smile and hands me my change.

I smile back, "Thanks have a nice day." I say as I head out of the door. I decide and take Mikes advice to avoid the bikers and I head over to the side of the building to wait for Daniel and Rachel to come pick me up.

I sit there for a minute and decide to eat my granola bar, I finish it immediately. I chug my water to get rid of the granola bar left in my mouth. When I'm done with my water and granola bar, I walk over to the trash can in the front of the store to throw away the bottle and wrapper. Once I throw my trash away, I look over at the 2 biker's who have been eyeing me ever since I got here. I walk back over to the side of the building and at the corner of my eye; I see the biker's walking up to the store. At first I think that there were going to go in to buy something, but, I then realize they are walking over to me. I stiffen against the building, this can't be good.

I just look at them, not relieving how scared I really was to them. Once they're standing in front of me, I slightly start to shake at the expressions on their faces; they look angry and have a gleam in their eyes. "You got a staring problem?" The older biker says. I would say he was about 50 something and his brown hair was starting to fade to a gray color.

"N-n-no sir," I stutter. When he hears the shaking in my voice, he smirks. He probably enjoys making me feel intimidated, trying to make himself look like a bad ass.

The other biker steps up, "Well, I think you do." He's younger, probably in his early 30's, maybe the same age as Mike but taller and blonde. "How about we fix that problem of yours?" He pulls out a switchblade and looks over at the older man, "What do ya say Snake?" I was too scared to laugh at the name, even though I thought the name was pretty stupid.

"I say," Snake puts his hand on my face, "We should take her back to my place and we could have some fun." He winks at me and I'm filled with disgust, anger, and fear.

Snake strokes my face and places his thumb on my lip and leans down, about to kiss me. I gather up enough courage to bite his thumb and kick him in his groin. He kneels on my ground and groans in pain, and I try to run for it. But the younger man quickly grabs my arm and forcefully pulls me back and grabs my neck, pushing me into the side of the building. "You're going to regret doing that girl." He presses the knife to my throat, almost enough to break the skin.

Then, Snake recovers from my kick, gets up and walks over to me with an angry expression on his face and slaps me. I don't do anything about it because I can't. The other man presses the knife harder into my throat and I feel the jagged part of the knife barely going into me, I feel the smart amount of blood starting to surface. He gives me a dark smile, "Any last words?"

Just then I hear the screeching of tires onto the pavement of the gas station. I glance over to my left, the direction of the car and I see Daniel's Camaro and I slightly breathe a sigh of relief. Only slightly, Daniel might get himself killed protecting me from these 2 guys. He's out numbered and I don't want him to get hurt, especially if one of them was carrying a gun, it could all be over.

Daniel pulls up to the front of the store and immediately jumps out, not even bothering to wait for the car to stop all of the way. He strides over to the bikers and punches Snake with what looked like all of his might and I hear a crunching noise, making me cringe.

Daniel then strides over to the biker and I with a pissed off look on his face and grabs him by the throat and throws him down to the ground. He looks at me, "Go to my car and get in, don't leave the car. I'll be back once I'm done with these guys."

"No." I simply say, "I'm not going to leave you by yourself with them." Just then, they both get up. I look over at Snake and he has a crooked nose dripping blood and I look over to my right and see that the biker doesn't have a scratch on him… yet. Snake is the first to talk.

"Well, well, what do we got here?" Snake says as he walks slowly to us, "Are you her little savior? Well, what makes you think you can take on the both of us? You can't, so you might as well give up and just hand us the girl."

Daniel gets even madder and says through clenched teeth, "Over my dead body." Then he clears his face of any emotion and simply says, "And I believe that you understate me, I can take you two with my hand tied behind my back," he says this with his usual cocky smirk. "So, if you think you guys are as tough as you say you are, give it your best shot." Daniel opens up his arms to invite them to do anything they want to him.

I stand there silent and start backing away from them heading towards the car. I bolt for it and get into the passenger side. I'm still able to see everything that's going on and I watch intently, especially on Daniel and every move that he makes.

Snake is the first one to attack Daniel and Daniel fights right back. Snake tries to punch him in the face, but, Daniel grabs Snake's fist in mid fight and squeezes. From the looks of it, it hurt Snake because I could hear him howl in pain and he slowly gets on his knees. Daniel finally lets go since he has had enough, but then, he punches Snake in the face repeatedly with what looks to be all of his might.

While Daniel is punching Snake, the younger biker sneaks behind Daniel with his knife drawn above his head ready to strike. As I place my hand on the handle of the car door, to help Daniel, he whips around and connects his elbow with the biker's face. Daniel then kicks the biker in his stomach as he is wincing in pain on the ground from the blow.

I glance over at Snake still on the ground; it looks like he won't be getting up anytime soon. I feel worried for him, he has blood all over his face and I wonder if he's okay. Even though he wanted to kill me and do things to me, I would still feel bad because I would be the one responsible for his death.

I look back at Daniel and the poor biker that he is beating up to a pulp. I finally decide to step out of the car and step in and take matters into my own hands. Just then, Rachel's car pulls up and she immediately jumps out of the car. "What the hell is going on Lauren?" She looks over at Daniel in horror and shock, seeing the scene that I have been seeing for the past 10 minutes in disgust.

I ignore the question and speed walk over to Daniel who is still punching him and looks like he has no intention of stopping. "Daniel!" I shout at him, he ignores me and continues. "Daniel, stop!" I get to him and try to pull him off of the biker who is clearly knocked into unconsciousness, but he doesn't budge. I kneel down to his level, "Please!" I plead him, the tears starting to swell in my eyes, "Daniel, please stop!" I finally start to sob. "Please." I whisper.

That's when he finally stops and looks over to me with a hurt expression on his face. "Lauren," he lingers.

"Please, just stop, you don't need to do this to them, they have had enough, just please, for me," I plead him. I get up and pull him up with me, he doesn't argue. I wrap my arms around his waist and hug him, silently crying over the day's events and crying for the relief that he was here with me to make me feel safe and make me feel better.

Daniel wraps his arms around me and puts his head on top of mine and we just stand there for a minute content in each other's arms.

I then pull away and look over at the biker and Snake, still unconscious. "What do we do with them?" I ask Daniel, "Do we call the police and get some help?"

He looks over at their bodies also and replies, "If you want." And he starts to walk over to the driver side of his car, "But if it was me, I wouldn't do a thing for them." Once he gets to the car, he turns around and looks at me with angry eyes, "You know why? Because they got what they deserved and should suffer for it."

I'm shocked by his behavior; I've never seen him act this way. I know that they wanted to hurt me and he's right they deserved to be beaten up a little bit but to the extent Daniel when to, no. They didn't deserve to die, no one does. "Don't say that, Daniel!" I shout at him, "No one deserves that, they're human, just like us, and everyone makes mistakes."

He shouts right back, "Why are you defending them Lauren? They don't deserve the kindness you're showing them." He waves his arm over to Snake and the biker. "If anything, they deserve to die for what they tried to do to you." He walks right up to me, "You try to see the good in everyone, and I admire that about you Lauren, but, not this time. There is no good in those 2, not one spec of it." He pauses for me to reply, but, I don't, so he continues, "You know I'm right but you're too proud to admit it."

I just look at him, not one word coming out of my mouth. 'He's just on edge,' I think to myself, 'He'll get over this eventually.' This is the first actual fight we've ever had, to the point where we were yelling at each other. And I don't like it, but, I'm not going to apologize or admit I was wrong because to me, I really wasn't. But I guess I'm too proud to admit it.

I walk away angrily and head to the store, where Mike is sitting behind the counter with his legs propped up on the counter, reading a magazine. He looks up when he hears the door open and smiles, "Well, look whose back." I don't say anything and I walk up to him. And right away Mike knows something is wrong and asks, "Are you okay?"

"No, I'm not okay; I need you to call the police right away please." He grabs the phone on the counter and dials 911, and I tell him what to say to the police, "I was harassed by those bikers out there and they tried to kill me. But luckily, my boyfriend came and helped me out. Now, the bikers are injured very badly and need medical attention."


	11. Chapter 11

_Chapter 11_

Once I walk out of the store after having Mike call the police, I see that Daniel and Rachel were both looking over at me with two completely different facial expressions on their face. Rachel looks shocked but relieved and then there's Daniel. He looks at me with anger and a hint of remorse in his eyes. I know he isn't angry at me but at the two biker's, at least, that's what I hoped.

The police and ambulance get to the gas station not even 10 minutes later. Two police men go with the two bikers in the ambulance and cuff them to the gurney. The remaining 2 police men walk over to Daniel, Rachel, and I where we're standing in a row, with Rachel between Daniel and I. The 2 police men come up to me first and introduce themselves, "I'm Officer Thomas," the police man with a full head of dark brown hair, skin like snow say and a friendly looking face, "And this is Officer Johnson." He gestures to the other police man standing beside him. Officer Johnson has a clean bald head and wrinkles, he looks to be about 60, and he doesn't look to happy to be here. "Can you tell us what happened?"

I sigh, "Well, I walking along the road and I decided to stop by the gas station and get a little snack to eat while I waited for Daniel and Rachel to come pick me up. I waited outside on the side of the building and while I was waiting, the 2 bikers came up to me and started harassing me. The older one, Snake, he called himself said he was going to kill me for staring at them but before they were going to kill me, they were going to… 'Have some fun.'" I shiver at the thought and look over at Daniel. I see he was staring right at me with no expression on his face and only anger in his eyes. I look back to Officer Thomas.

"I see," Officer Johnson says, "What happened next?"

"Umm, my boyfriend, Daniel came and saw the younger biker holding a knife to my throat. He tried to tell them to leave before anything got ugly. Then, they attacked him and Daniel fought back" I pause, "He was only defending me and himself sir. Please don't charge him for anything." I was pleading to Officer Johnson; he only looked at me, no expression on his face or anything.

I hoped that they wouldn't charge Daniel for anything. He didn't do anything wrong, it was self defense really. Except that Daniel technically was the first one to fight with them, but, he only protecting me. If he hadn't done what he done, I could have been killed.

Officer Thomas is the first one to speak, "Don't worry; I don't think we will have to charge him of anything." He looks to Officer Johnson, "Can you talk to Daniel for me please?" And Officer Johnson does what he says, I look over, Daniel and Officer Johnson are walking away from us while he is talking to Daniel.

My attention falls back to Officer Thomas, "So, what happens now?"

"You'll most likely need to go to court once those criminals heal and hopefully they go to jail." Officer Thomas says, "Is there any way to contact your mother? She needs to know about this."

"Uh, yeah, here's her number," I give him my mom's cell phone number and he pulls out his phone and starts talking to my mom. I turn to Rachel and hug her, and she hugs me right back, "Are you okay?" I ask her.

"Yeah," she breathes, "It was just kind of scary to pull up to the gas station to see Daniel beating the living hell out of someone. You know?" I don't say anything and she asks me, "What's wrong with Daniel? He seems really mad…"

"I don't know," I sigh, "I think it's just because he didn't want them to get away with what they did, or what they were going to do to me. He'll get over it eventually." Hopefully, it seemed like he was legitimately angry with me.

Just then, Officer Thomas comes back and Rachel and I pull apart, "Well, I talked to your mom and she seems a little… upset. So, you two are free to go, do you guys need a ride home?"

I look at Rachel, "Its fine, I can ride home with Daniel. Thank you for the offer though." I glance over at Daniel who is still talking to Officer Johnson.

He looks skeptical, "I don't know if you'll be able to do that."

I furrow my brow in confusion, "Why not?"

"Because he's still under questioning and he can't leave until we're done." He looks over at Daniel and Officer Johnson, "But, I guess you can wait. I don't think we'll need to keep him. I just have to wait until Officer Johnson is done questioning him and see what he has to say."

"Oh, okay, thank you Officer Thomas." I give him a weak smile.

He smiles back, "You're welcome. You two ladies have a nice night." With that, he walks away over to Daniel and Officer Johnson.

Rachel and I stand there and wait for the two Officers to finish questioning Daniel. Even though they really shouldn't be questioning him, they should be questioning those biker's. Daniel did nothing wrong other than defending me and that's not a crime.

About 10 minutes of standing there in silence, and me contemplating Daniel and his behavior today, Daniel finally walks over to Rachel and me. I walk to Daniel and break the distance between us. We stand in front of each other for a minute not talking; finally I put my hand on the side of his face. He looks down at me with pain in his eyes and suddenly walks around me. I immediately chase after him and walk beside him.

We stop in front of Rachel, "Thanks for letting me know about Lauren," Daniel says with no emotion in his voice, "I don't know what would have happened if you didn't let me know."

Rachel gives a small smile, "You're welcome." She pauses a minute and looks at me, "Text me and call me later okay?"

"Sure," I quietly say. With that, she walks away to her car and I watch her drive off and at the same time, the police also leave, leaving just Daniel and I standing there at the gas station. Once everyone is gone completely, Daniel walks over to the passenger side of his car and opens the door for me. I accept his invite and scoot into the car seat.

Daniel walks over to the driver's side of the seat and gets in. He starts the car and we finally leave the gas station in the silence. I wanted to break the silence so badly but I was afraid that if I talked we might get into another argument and I didn't want that. So, we stay silent until it becomes unbearable for me and I finally look at him and ask, "What's wrong?"

He slightly glances over at me and quickly looks back to the road, "Nothing. Why?"

I frown, he's lying to me, "Stop that, there is something wrong, why won't you tell me?"

His voice and expression emotionless, he says, "There's nothing wrong, so stop asking."

I keep myself from screaming at him, not wanting to make things even worse between us, "Yes there is. You were yelling at me earlier and you looked angry the whole time there. Is it just because I called the police?"

"No."

My eyes water, tears threatening to swell over, "Then what is it? Why won't you tell me?" My voice crackling the whole time, sobs wanting to come out of my throat.

He finally looks at me directly, "Lauren…"

"Don't Lauren me," I finally cry, "I know what you're going to say, it's my entire fault. I get it, no need for a replay of my screw ups."

He doesn't say anything; he just looks at me with pain and guilt in his eyes. I had to look away to keep me from crying even more. I suddenly just stop crying and say, "Pull over."

He looks at me with a hint of confusion, "What?"

"You heard me, pull over and let me out." I put my hand on the door handle, "Or I'm just going to jump out of the car now." I threatened, it was stupid of me, but I needed a breather and wanted to calm down; the only way I can do that is by walking home.

"Fine." He jerks the car to the right of the road and stops the car. He looks at me, looking aggravated, "Are you happy now?"

"Yes," I say in a bitchy tone. I open the car door and run out, and shortly, I hear the other door open and slam close. I keep running and don't look back when Daniel calls my name. Suddenly I feel hands wrap around my waist and yank me back. I kick and scream for Daniel to let me go but he doesn't listen. He lifts me onto his shoulder and walks me back to the car.

Once we reach the car, Daniel puts me down right against the front passenger door and leans forward against me, so close to touching me and puts his hands on either side of my head onto the car. "Would you like to explain what the hell that was?" He says calmly.

"Maybe it was a way to get your attention," I glare at him, "And it looks like it worked."

He smiles and rolls his eyes, "Why do you want my attention?"

"So you can actually give me answers to my questions." I simply say, "Promise me you'll answer them truthfully."

He looks to the left for a second and looks back at me, "Fine I promise, now ask away."

I sigh, "Why did you keep on beating up those men with no intention of stopping?"

He gives out a short laugh, "I was going to stop, just until they were dead." I stiffen at his answer which makes him smile again. This was such a different side of Daniel that I never saw and hopefully I never see again.

"Seriously Daniel, why did you keep beating them?"

He sighs, "Well, to answer your question truthfully, it was because I wanted to make sure that they weren't able to touch you ever again." Walks away to the back door and puts his elbows on top of the car and places his face into his hands. "Just the thought of them, touching you and the thought of them doing what they wanted to do to you, mad me so angry that I couldn't stop." He sounds so upset and I start to feel bad for being such a bitch to him.

I walk over to him and try to put my hand on his shoulder but he just walks away from me and paces around, "Do you really want to know the rest?" He asks quietly, looking at me with sadness in his eyes. I nod.

He also nods, "Alright then." He sighs again, "Well, when I was young, before my dad died, my mother and I were out at night. We were on our way to the beach for a night of looking at the stars, something we did whenever the sky was clear. And then, on this particular night, we go a different route because we thought it would have been quicker." He pauses and looks over at me. I nod for him to continue and he looks out into the forest near the road, "My mother and I were about to pass this alley but then these two men dressed in all black came out of the shadows and blocked our path. They just grabbed my mom and told her that they were going to have a good time and told me I should just run home to daddy. I knew something was wrong so being the brave boy I was, I started hitting them and kicking them and told them to leave my mother alone and they wouldn't. They beat me and left me to die where I was. I heard everything those men did to my mother and I heard her scream in pain and I couldn't help her at all. The last thing I heard my mother say was that she loved me, then, I heard the gun shot that ended her life." I see a single tear fall from his eye and it takes everything I have in me not to cry for him.

"I'm so sorry, Daniel." I say sincerely. I can't imagine how that must have been for him and I don't want to put him through that same pain ever, or any type of pain. I feel so bad for being a bitch to him when probably all he was thinking about was his mother.

Daniel ignores my sympathy to him and looks to me, "The reason why I was so angry before was because seeing the faces of those men reminded me of the ones who killed my mother so many years ago that day. I guess, what I did to those bikers is what I wanted to do to those men." He pauses for a minute and just stands there and looks up at the clear night time sky. Then, he walks over to me, "It was also because the thought of you ending up like my mother, it tore me apart. And because of the thought of losing someone else so close and special to me just made me snap."

I stand up on my tip toes, wrap my arms around his neck and I crush my lips into his. The kiss at first was slow, as if he was about to pull away any minute but then the kiss grew with more passion and fire. He wrapped his arms around me as if to say to me that he never wanted to let me go which filled me with more passion for him.

We were like that for about a couple minutes until he pulls away, and places his forehead upon mine. He looks me with his newly lit up eyes full of love and awe, "I'm sorry for being such a dick to you, Lauren. There was no excuse."

I smile and I say, still out of breath from our kiss, "No, I'm sorry; I shouldn't have been such a bitch to you. I didn't know the reason and I shouldn't have assumed anything." I hug him tighter and so does he. Daniel and I stay like that until we see another car come past us on the road and that's when we pull apart from each other.

"I think we should go, before your mom kills me for being so late." He smiles at the thought of my mom getting mad and opens the door for me, I get in reluctantly. And he gets in on the other side and starts the engine.

I smile, reach out to him, hold his hand and say, "Don't worry, we actually have an excuse this time." With that being said, we drive off, one our way to face the wrath of my mother.


	12. Chapter 12

_Chapter 12_

"You need to finish getting ready before you're late!" My mom shouts to Rachel and me from downstairs. We're in my room about to change into our dresses we bought from Oak Park for the ball in the town hall tonight. Usually, I'm not one for dances but for this one, I really am excited to go. I'll be with my best friend and my first boyfriend I genuinely care about. After what he told me a couple days ago after the whole incident at the gas station, my feelings for him grew stronger; as if that was even possible.

When Daniel told me about his mom, it made me feel so special and believe that he really trusts me with something like that. I was the first to know, besides his relatives, and the only one he has ever told about it, even his best friend didn't know. This made me feel even more honored to be the one he told because I know what that's like.

I'm standing near the left side of my wall with my arms out, leaning as Rachel tightly ties the laces on the back of my dress. "Okay mom!" I shout back to her, "Give us 30 minutes!"

"I don't think Daniel can wait 30 minutes! Or his friend, he looks as if he just wants to die out of boredom!" I laugh quietly to myself. When Rachel is finally done with tightening my laces, it's my turn to tighten hers.

"Okay, mom! We'll try our best!" I go through the laces quickly, and soon enough we both have our dresses on, "How do I look?" I pose for Rachel.

She laughs, "Sexy as always, what about me?" She poses for me.

I laugh at her pose, "Hot," and I make a sizzling sound, "Now all we need to do is the finishing touches." I go over to my vanity across the room and Rachel follows. I then hand her my curling iron, "Can you please finish curling my hair while I do my makeup?" I hardly wear makeup, Daniel says he prefers me without it, but, he hasn't seen me in my best work of art yet. Hopefully he approves.

I gather up the things I need, the fake eyelashes, mascara, eyeliner, eye shadow, concealer, and my favorite French vanilla flavored lip gloss. The ingredients I need to make me actually attractive.

As I place the fake eyelashes in, Rachel starts finishing curling my hair into beautifully curled ringlets that weren't over the top and flattered me. I'm glad Rachel was training to become a cosmetologist; she's perfect for the job and she really enjoys it.

After all the curling and make up, Rachel and I were finally done. We didn't want to look at each yet until everything was together; all we needed now was our accessories. I first put my brand new silver heels on with the crystals embedded onto the straps and front. Once I finally finish putting on my heels, I retrieve my elbow length white satin gloves and my grandmother's sapphire and diamond drop necklace from the top drawer of my dresser. The necklace has been passed down generation to generation in our family; the price of it now would probably be worth hundreds of dollars, maybe more.

Once I finally get everything on, I ask Rachel, "Are you ready?" When she is, we count down together "1…2…3" We both turn around at the same time to evaluate each other. I gasp at the sight of Rachel, and she does the same seeing me.

She looked absolutely gorgeous. Especially with her dark forest green colored dress with a beautiful beading on the bodice and skirt. Her hair was curled like mine was except that it was up into a half up half down hairstyle while my hair was all on my right side of my face, a one shoulder curled type of hairstyle. She has an emerald necklace with matching drop earrings on with the same kind of pair of gloves as mine, except hers are black. Overall, she looked stunning.

I smile to her and say, "You look absolutely gorgeous."

She smiles back and replies, "So do you, no wait, scratch that, there really isn't any words that can describe the way you look right now. And in a good way." She walks over to me and we hug each other, "This is going to be one of the best nights of my life."

"Mine too; do you think Daniel will approve of me?" I ask her, worried that he won't think that I'm beautiful or anything. When it comes down to it, I'm always worried about my looks now because I always want to look my best for him.

She pulls back and just stares at me as if asking me if I was serious. "Of course he will! Worst case scenario, he would want to take that dress off himself, if you know what I mean." She winks and I laugh, taking that as a compliment of course.

"Thank you, I guess." We both laugh and I grab her hand, "Ready for this amazing night ahead of us?" She nods reluctantly and we start walking into the hallway and stop just before the hallway and stairs met. "We're ready!" I call down. Then I hear the rustling of feet coming towards the foot of the stairs and stopping just as quickly as they came.

"I'll go first," Rachel whispers and before I can respond, Rachel steps in front me and makes her way down the stairs so gracefully. I take a peek down to the bottom of the stairs and see Daniel and his friend standing on the left side of the stairs; my mom on the right side taking photos of Rachel descending the stairs and walking over to Daniel's friend's side. Then, all attention goes back to the head of the stairs, me.

I take a deep breath and take my first step, and try to look as graceful as Rachel did even though I'm probably failing at it. I look over at Daniel and never take my eyes off of him the whole time I come down the stairs. His jaw was dropped, stunned by the sight of me. I blush, wondering about what he's thinking of at this very moment and hoping that it was good.

Once I get to the last two steps, Daniel comes to the foot of the stairs and holds out his hand to help me down. I take it, and as I'm walking down the rest of the way, he mouths, 'You look phenomenal.' Daniel saying this makes me blush even deeper than I already am.

I then look over at my mom and see she's about to cry. Oh gosh, seeing her cry makes me want to cry. I'm not going to let that happen though. She comes over, hugs me and whispers, "You look so beautiful sweetie." I whisper back a thank you, then, she steps back and announces, "Time for some more pictures. Come on, everyone gather around and put each other's corsages and boutonnieres on."

We all gather around each other and let my mom take pictures and she takes separate pictures, Daniel and me, and then Rachel and Daniel's attractive friend. His friend has long shaggy blonde hair and has chocolate brown eyes and has a lean muscular build, just like Daniel. In ways, they did look alike but they didn't at the same time.

We finally get done with the pictures about 10 minutes later when I declared we were going to be late and that it was time to go. As Daniel's friend and Rachel walk out together and get into a Ferrari, my mom stops Daniel and me from walking out as well. "Slow down you two." Daniel and I turn around to face my mom and when we do, I'm blinded by the flash of the camera. "Okay," she smiles, "You're free to go." Daniel and I finally step out of the door until my mom calls out, "Oh, Daniel?"

Daniel turns around, "Yes, Miss. Jones?" He says with sincerity and respect in his voice.

"Remember," She points a finger at him with her serious face, "11 o'clock sharp." She then smiles and says to us, "Have a nice time!" And with those words, closes the door behind us, allowing Daniel and I to finally go.

* * *

><p>Daniel and I have been inside his car making out for the past 10 minutes since we got here, the party started 20 minutes ago. Rachel is probably wondering where I was, and I really wanted to dance with Daniel now.<p>

I pull away from Daniel and it took all of my strength not to go back to kissing him, I sigh and smile, "Don't you think it's time for us to go in by now?"

He smiles, and starts kissing my jawbone and heads down slowly to my neck. "I prefer to be here and have you all to myself and do this." He comes back to my mouth and we start kissing again. I moan against his lips and that makes him kiss me more. He starts kissing my neck again and it takes every ounce of me to pull away.

"Please?" I give him my best pouty face.

Daniel groans in defeat, "Fine," he gives me one of his sexy half smiles that he always does whenever he wants to seduce and it's worked all of the time. Except now of course. "You're lucky you're cute." He leans down to kiss my lips and I close the distance between us but only a split second, a peck on the lips. And Daniel gives me a look of disappointment.

I turn my torso towards the front of the car and pull down the visor from the ceiling of the Camaro, looking at the damage that has been done to my perfectly glossed lips. And sure enough, lip gloss is smeared; I pull out the lip gloss, get a Kleenex out of my clutch and wipe away the mess. I reapply my lip gloss with care and patience.

Once I'm done reapplying the French Vanilla lip gloss, I smile and turn to Daniel, who was watching me the whole time, "The damage that you caused is finally fixed, now we can go."

He smirks, "A shame, I was hoping to get another taste."

I roll my eyes, "Well, you're going to wait until the end of the night if you keep up trying to get me to kiss you again." I smile at him.

He gives out a small laugh, "You wish, I don't need to try to get you to kiss me. Plus, you're always the one to make the moves on me first." He winks

I open my mouth in false shock, "I do not! You always kiss me first."

He gives me his half smile and says, "How about we make a bet? Whoever kisses the other person first, loses."

"You're on. But what do I get when I win?"

"_If_ you win, which you won't, I won't make fun of that artist you're always listening to anymore. What's his name again? Justin Beaver?"

"It's Justin _Bieber_. You've got yourself a done," we were about to shake on it till I stop myself, "Wait, what you get if you win?"

He smiles, "You have to spend one whole night with me at my place, no exceptions."

I open my mouth in protest but I shut it. I never liked his house really; there was something about it that made me feel weird. It felt like something in that house was holding a secret of some sorts and it felt like it wasn't exactly a harmless secret. I really wanted to win a bet with him once, out of all the other bets we've had, I've always lost. Not this time. "Deal," I say confidently, and we shake hands. "Now, let's please go to the ball."

"Yes ma'am," he says in a false southern accent that makes me giggle and gets out of the car. In a matter of seconds, he's on my side of the car and opens the door for me and offers me a hand. I take it, and lift myself out of the seat and onto the pavement. Once I'm standing on the pavement and make sure my dress isn't ruined in some way, Daniel and I start walking to the front entrance. Daniel offers me his arm and I accept it by putting my arm through his.

Once we enter the town hall, the mayor welcoming us in, I see that there is no special lighting or a D.J that I thought there was going to be. The huge chandelier in the grand ballroom is the only light source in the room and near the back of the room was a band full of classical instruments playing soft classical music.

The feeling of the room was so relaxing and beautiful that I was content with the different genre of music I would usually not listen to. There are nicely set up tables around the ballroom and I see Daniel's friend and Rachel on the other side of the huge room. We walk over to them arm in arm, I decided that this would be a good time to ask Daniel what his friend's name was, "I forgot to ask you before, but, what's your friends name?"

Daniel utters one name, "Henry."

I stiffen as a chill goes down my spine. For some odd reason, the name Henry brought a bad feeling to my stomach but I try to push away the feeling of anger and fear I felt with that name. Once we get to the table I eventually push the feeling away and put on a fake smile so no one suspected that something was wrong.

Daniel and I sit down next to each other at the finely placed all white tables and as we're sitting Rachel says, "There you two are, Henry and I were starting to wonder where you guys went." Again, another chill down my spine at the name Henry. She smiles at me then looks over to Daniel, "So, where were you?"

Daniel clears his throat and simply says, "Fixing a car problem we were having." He makes it so believable that even Rachel believes it, and it's hard to convince her of anything. I wish Henry would do the same, but he doesn't believe Daniel for one bit.

"With a brand new car like that," Henry says confidently, "I don't think you guys would have had any problems with it." He smiles and looks at me; I think he knows that it gets to me when he's pressing the little incident a little more than it should. That business is between Daniel and me only, not Henry's or even Rachel's.

"It was probably the dealer's fault." Daniel says casually, "Can't really trust anyone with a Camaro like mine."

"You can, if it cost you that much money, you could have people do anything for you." Henry smiles, being cocky about it, making me glare at him.

There's something about him that irritates me and just makes me plain out don't like him. I don't normally conclude anything about anyone I just met, but with Henry, I do. I conclude that he's someone I don't like and I need to get away from him.

I look over at the center of the ballroom, and I see that a lot of people are starting to dance; I get up and drag Daniel with me, "Excuse us, we're just going to dance for a few minutes. Be back in a bit Rachel." I take Daniel's arm and we walk over to the dance floor.

The way Daniel was looking at me right now, he could tell that something was wrong with me, but, he just didn't know what. He frowns in concern and asks, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I simply reply, "I just wanted to dance that's all."

We finally get to the dance area and once we get into the center, Daniel bows like a gentleman and places his right hand on my waist and places his left hand in my right hand. I casually place my left hand on his shoulder and Daniel leads us into a dance, almost like a waltz, but, slower. I smile, "I had no idea you knew how to dance like this."

"Oh, it's nothing; I had dance lessons when I was younger. I guess I've managed to remember a few moves," He says and sighs, "To be honest, I actually liked it." He suddenly spins me and pulls me back automatically, "And don't you dare tell anyone that."

I laugh which makes him smile, "Or what?" I ask jokingly, "You'll kiss me? The last time I checked if you do, you lose a bet. But either way, I'm fine with it, so, go ahead." I lick my lips slowly and seductively, "Mmm French Vanilla, your favorite."

Daniel looks over to the left of him and smiles to himself and looks back to me, "You're going to regret doing that."

I laugh, I loved teasing him. It made me feel like I had somewhat of a power over him, but, I never do this only if I'm joking with him. I have to admit, I should do this more often if this got me my way. I then feel a tap on my shoulder, I turn around to see who it was and I see that it's Henry, "Mind if I cut in?"

I just look at him, wondering what his motives were, "Actually, I do mind. And besides, you're on a date with Rachel, dance with her." He puts his hands up in innocence and walks away into the crowd surrounding us.

Daniel looks at me in disbelief, "Whoa, what was that about? Don't get me wrong, I find it _extremely_ attractive when you get feisty, but, what was that?"

I sigh in frustration, "Nothing, I'll tell you after the party." He didn't argue, not wanting to put me in a worse mood than I already was in. Daniel and I keep dancing until a bell sounds, announcing that it was dinner time. Everyone stops dancing and they all head to this huge table covered with an abundance of food at the right side of the room.

Daniel and I return to our table with Henry and Rachel sitting there and laughing. I roll my eyes towards Henry. From the looks of him, he looks like a player; finds a girl and drops her like a glove when he's done with her. I'm not going to let that happen to Rachel, she deserved someone so much better.

Once Daniel and I sit down at the table, things got quiet and a little awkward; no one was talking. I certainly didn't want to talk especially if Henry was going to be here. I know that I shouldn't let him ruin my night, but, there's something about him that just makes me want to… punch him.

Just then, Henry stands up, "Rachel, do you want to get something to eat?" She stands up also and nods. With that they walk away, holding hands. When they are out of ear shot, I put my finger and make a false, quiet gagging noise.

Daniel smirks, "I have a feeling that someone doesn't like Henry." He places his hands on mine on the table. "So what's wrong?"

I just look at him for a minute, while he looked at me, taking in his beauty. I wanted to kiss his soft lips so much right now but I restrained myself; just for a few seconds. Finally, I lean in and softly kiss his lips and he kisses me back. I already knew that I was going to lose this bet, so I wanted to make the complete, regardless.

Daniel pulls away, and a cocky smile appears across his face. I know why he's smiling because he won the bet, congratulations to him. "You realize that I just won our bet right?"

"I know," I say gravely, "But you're too hard to resist."

He laughs quietly, "And was that kiss a way to avoid the question?" He eyes me with that eye thing he always does, making him look even hotter.

I groan, "Fine you caught me, happy now?"

He leaves that smile on his face and replies smoothly, "I'll respond to that question once you answer mine."

I groan again, deciding to tell him what I felt about Henry, "There's something about Henry that I don't like."

Daniel furrows his brow, "What do you mean there's something about Henry? Did he say or do something to you?"

I shake my head, "No, it's just that I get a bad vibe from him and it makes me feel uncomfortable." I look down at our hands that are intertwined, "You probably think I'm crazy, but, I just can't stand him being with Rachel right now."

He looks at me seriously, "I don't think you're crazy. Maybe all you need to do is talk to him and get to know him better."

I'm skeptical about that; I don't know what to say so I just don't say anything to his suggestion. I get up and hold my hand out to him, "Come on, let's go get something to eat." I try to say with some false cheer in my voice, but it's clear that Daniel knows it's fake. Daniel gets up from his seat and we hold hands on our way to the buffet table.

Once we get to the table, there is no one there, everyone is sitting at their tables enjoying the meal and talking with each other. Daniel doesn't eat anything so I go ahead and grab a plate and start with getting a salad, I go down the line to the perfectly roasted turkey. As I pick up the knife to start cutting the turkey, a sudden feeling comes over me. A voice in my head says 'Stab Daniel anywhere but the heart and make it look like an accident.' I have no control and I listen to the voice willingly, and I don't feel anything in me to stop from what I'm doing.

I take the knife and cut the turkey at an angle, an angle that's facing Daniel and I pretend the knife slipped off the turkey. Suddenly the knife plunges right into Daniel's stomach.

Daniel groans and winces in pain and falls onto the floor. I gasp, realizing what I have done and wondering why I would do something like that and not believing I did this. I break down and I start tearing up kneeing beside him, "Daniel! I'm so sorry, I don't know what happened!" On instinct, I pull out his cell phone from his suit pocket and dial 911. Daniel puts his hand over the phone and clicks end.

"I'll be fine Lauren." He manages to say, "There's not need to call 911."

"Yes there is, but don't worry, I know you'll be alright," I lean down and kiss his foreword and whisper, "You'll be okay, everything's okay." I dial 911 again from his cell phone. Before I could press talk, a hand comes over my hands and takes the phone away.

I whip my head around and notice that it was Henry who took the phone away from me. "Why the hell did you just do that? He could be dying right now!" I shout to him with tears in my eyes, finally, they start streaming down my cheek.

Henry shushes me, "Be quiet and lower your voice. You don't need to draw attention over here." Before I could say anything, he goes on the other side of Daniel and just yanks out the knife. Daniel groans in pain, I could tell that he was trying hard not to be loud to remain unnoticed. I take a glance and I swear I see that the wound is shrinking in size.

"Why don't you want me to get him to a hospital? You just made it worse by taking out the knife!" I whisper angrily at Henry. But he just ignores me and helps Daniel off of his feet, and looks around to make sure no one was looking, and I look too, no one was. Henry and Daniel walk off to the side exit right near the table, walking onto the porch and heading into the rose gardens; and I follow.

"What are you doing?" I frantically ask Henry. Daniel shouldn't be walking, especially being stabbed and bleeding; walking will only make his condition worse.

Henry finally looks at me and answers, "I'm helping him Lauren!" He points over to towards the town hall, "Go back to the party and stop you're worrying already!" I stop in my tracks, shocked that Henry actually yelled at and had the nerve to tell me what and what I shouldn't do.

I run after Henry and Daniel, "What do you mean you're helping him? How are you doing that by taking him to the woods?"

"Well," he says in an impatient tone, "I parked my car on the other side of the woods, and going through the woods is the quickest way to get to the other side."

"Okay," I give up the fight that I was never going to win. I don't like Henry, but, I know that he wouldn't let anything happen to Daniel. "Just let me see how bad the wound is."

I pull up his shirt to look at the wound. "Don't!" Henry shouts to me, but it's too late, I already see what he didn't want me to see. The gash that I saw just a minute ago was practically gone, just a little slither of the wound showed. It looked as if he had a mere paper cut or a scratch.

I furrow my brow in confusion, "What-what is that?" I stammer and point to the almost absent wound, "Why isn't there a gash there anymore?" Daniel looks at me and he doesn't say anything, he just sighs and looks as if there is something that he doesn't want to tell me.

"It's noth-" Henry is about to say but Daniel stops him with the flash of his hand.

"I think it's about time she knew, Henry." Daniel says gravely, "I mean there's no way of covering it up now."

I just look at Daniel in confusion; I glance to Henry hoping he would say something and I look back to Daniel, "What do I need to know Daniel?" I start to get nervous and I start to shiver. I'm afraid that what they're about to tell me is going to change everything, and I was right.

Daniel and Henry both look to me with serious expressions across their faces, and Daniel is the one to speak and utters something that I never thought he would say, "I'm a vampire."


	13. Chapter 13

_Chapter 13 _

I stand there in disbelief and just in total utter shock. A part of me didn't believe what Daniel was telling me was true, that he was a vampire. But most of me, knew that Daniel wasn't human and a vampire seemed to fit the bill. I instantly flashback to the time in my bathroom where I saw that female demon like face in the mirror, and the time when Daniel picked up my rosary and it burnt his hand. The pieces slowly coming together in my mind. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel right now, I feel a combination of things, betrayed, angry, fearful, helpless, and a lot more emotions. I can't fathom the fact that I was kept in the dark for so long and I didn't see this coming. But I feel like I need to witness or see some proof that he really is what he says he is. I shake my head in disbelief, tears threatening to surface, "It can't be true, you're lying."

Daniel looked at me with such guilt and whispers, "It is true and you know it, Lauren." I still shake my head in denial.

"Show me then." I mutter, "Give me some proof that you are a… vampire." I almost couldn't speak the word out of my mouth. If what Daniel was saying to me was true, then, that would make my boyfriend a vampire. Was he planning to kill me? What did he want with me?

Daniel shakes his head, "I don't think that's a good idea Laur-"

I cut him off by shouting, "Show me!"

Daniel sighs and looks to Henry. They walk off to the woods, and I quickly follow, wanting to know what they were going to show me. When we arrive in the middle of the woods, out of sight and ear shot of anyone. Daniel leans against a tree and just looks at me. I then look at Henry, who is standing right next to Daniel, and I suddenly see him move in a blur.

I look around me but Henry is nowhere to be seen, he's gone. He moved with such speed that all I saw of him was a blur. "Where did he go?" I ask Daniel in cluelessness. It's humanly impossible to be able to move that fast.

Daniel doesn't say anything and continues staring at me. When I'm about to say something, Henry comes back with something in his hands. It looked to be dark and furry? As Henry gets closer, I notice that it's a rabbit he is holding. Why would he be holding a rabbit? Is it dead or alive? My guess would be that it was dead, poor thing.

When Henry reaches us, he tosses the rabbit to Daniel and he catches it. "Drink up," Henry orders then he looks to me, "I don't know if you want to watch this."

I didn't really know what he meant by that, but I can tell that he was trying to freak me out, "I can watch." I try to say confidently.

Henry and Daniel don't say anything. I watch Daniel intently, wanting to know what he was about to do. Daniel slightly tilts his head back and I see that his upper canine teeth are growing sharper. It takes me some time to realize, they're fangs. I take a step back away from Daniel and Henry at the sight of this.

Daniel then sinks his teeth into the flesh of the dead rabbit. I look down to the wood grounds, not wanting to watch the rest. 'He's drinking its blood.' I think to myself. How is that even possible? How does he do this? This must be a joke; we'll all be laughing about this tomorrow. But reality sweeps in and makes me finally realize, it's not a joke. It's all real, what Daniel said about him being a vampire was true.

I look back up at Daniel and I see he's finished drinking the rabbit's blood. He retracts his fangs then tosses the rabbit's carcass behind him farther into the woods. I hear the landing of the rabbit rustling some leaves, deep into the woods. Daniel looks at me, expressionless, with blood streaming down his mouth, dripping off of his chin. He doesn't say anything to me until he turns his back towards me. "You should go Lauren."

I'm speechless at first; he doesn't want to see me. Is he that disgusted with me that he can't even look at me? There's an inner battle going on within me, half of my body says that I need to run away and never look back. Then the other half of my body tells me to not run away from Daniel, like it knows that he wouldn't hurt me. If he's been a vampire ever since the day we met, he would have hurt me a long time ago. But he hasn't and that means something right? It means that he wouldn't.

"No." I whisper so quietly that I thought I didn't even say it. But I knew I did since Daniel flinched at the word. I take a cautious step towards Daniel.

Daniel then whips his head around towards me, "I SAID GO!" He bellows and his face changes right before my eyes. His jaw drops, showing his fangs. Then I see the iris of his eyes turn into a deep dark blue, almost black and the sclera part of his eyes turns red. The skin underneath his eyes turn black and red.

This face makes me flash back to the moment in my bathroom with the female. Daniel and the female both look of the face of a demon. And it scares me to death. I take a few steps back, turn around and run away towards the town hall. As I'm running, I hear a huge boom behind me which pushes me to run faster.

Once I get to the gardens, I'm out of breath. I stop for a minute to catch my breath, and I look behind me into the woods. I wonder what Daniel was doing now and I wonder what that huge crash behind me was. Was it Daniel? Or Henry? I knew it was most likely Daniel, and I had a feeling, he only did it to scare me even more, to stay away from him. My eyes tear up and this time I let the tears well over. Why would Daniel do this to me? After everything that we have been through.

I speed walk through the garden and onto the porch once my breath gets back to normal. I take a deep breath before I open the door to the town hall. Once I step in, I see that everyone is seated and the Mayor, the only one standing besides the waiters, is holding a glass in the air giving a speech about the town's history and how much we have progressed.

I make my way through the multiple amounts of tables and I finally get to the table Rachel is at, looking bored as hell. I slid into the chair beside her and she lights up when she sees me but he face becomes serious once she sees the tears streaming down my face, "What's wrong babe?" She grabs a clean napkin off of her empty clean plate and hands it to me.

"I'll tell you once we get out of here." I say dabbing my eyes, "I can't bare being here for one more second."

"Okay," She grabs her hand bag from the table and ascends from her seat, grasps my arm, making me rise along with her. "Is this about Daniel?"

At the mention of Daniel, I freeze up. I just learned not even 20 minutes ago that my boyfriend is a vampire, a creature that feeds on human and animal blood. But I wouldn't tell Rachel about any of this, or anybody for that matter. Everyone would think I'm crazy if I told someone, plus, I wouldn't do that to Daniel. Regardless, if he's a killer or not, I wouldn't do any wrong to him. Two wrongs don't make a right. "Yes and no."

Rachel nods and she leads us through the tables once again and we walk right out of the front entrance. Rachel curses under her breath. "What?"

"I don't have the keys to Henry's Ferrari," She then looks over to me, "And I'm assuming you don't have the keys to Daniel's Camaro?" I shake my head. She frowns and tells me to wait here and that she'll be right back. Rachel rushes into the town hall, leaving me alone on the front stairs.

I look to the woods and think of Daniel instantly. Again, I wonder, what's going through his mind right now is he thinking of me? Is he preying on innocent people? When I ask myself that question, chills run down my spine to think that Daniel would be able to take the lives of people away just like that. He's a killer, no matter what. He preys upon innocent people because that's who he is. I still can't grasp my mind around the fact that he's even a vampire. If Daniel's a vampire, I would assume Henry is one too. Is Henry the one who almost killed Abbey that day in the woods near the school? Are he and Daniel responsible for the deaths going on around the surrounding towns?

The front doors suddenly burst open, distracting me from the questions plaguing my mind. I turn around to see its Rachel with a set of car keys in her hand. "Where did you get those?" I ask as we walk down the flight of stairs.

"Your good friend, Michelle, actually was kind enough to lend her Audi." I'm shocked that Michelle would do that since she practically hated Rachel, before I could ask why she answers the question, "I mentioned that you were upset about Daniel and that you needed to get away but we had no ride, she said I could borrow her car just to get you home."

I just nod my head, distracted by the fact that my boyfriend was a vampire. We walk over to Michelle's navy blue Audi, Rachel enters the driver's seat and I sit in the passenger seat. She backs up the car and goes down the long drive way. I glance over to where Daniel's Camaro should be and I see that it's still there where he parked it which means that he must still be in the woods.

As Rachel, heads further and further away from the town hall, I glance over to the woods and in hopes that Daniel would be standing there. But once I look, Daniel nor Henry is nowhere in sight and a part of me is disappointed that I couldn't get one last look of the Daniel I knew, not the one that I last saw in those dark, merciless, woods.

I wake up the next morning with to the sound of my alarm clock going off. I slam my fist on the top of it to shut it up and it worked. I groan in aggravation, not wanting to ever wake up again. Except that my very vivid dream of Daniel didn't want me to go back to sleep. In the dream, Daniel and I were dancing at the ball just like last night but this time he was kissing my neck tenderly. As I was enjoying the touch of his lips on my neck, I suddenly felt a sharp pinch; I pull away from Daniel and put my hand on the place of the pain. I view my hand, to find blood all over it; that's when I realize that my neck was gushing out blood.

I look up at Daniel, and his face is the way it was the last time I saw him, only this time he was smiling as if he wanted to hurt me. I try to run away from him but he ends up blocking my path with his body and that's when my vision started to fade black. The last thing I remember is Daniel putting his hands around my neck and snapping it, he killed me. That's when I woke up to the sound of my alarm clock blaring the morning news.

I throw the covers off of me and sit on the edge of the bed, sitting there for a minute before getting up and moving across the room to my dresser. I snatch my cell phone from the top drawer of my dresser and turn it on. I let the phone wake up and come back to life before I look in my inbox for any unread messages. No new messages, figures.

I throw my phone on my bed out of frustration, then, I hear the vibration of my phone against my pillow. I walk over and retrieve my phone, looking at my phone; I see that Rachel is calling me. My heart sinks for I thought it would have been Daniel for some odd reason.

I push the talk button and press the phone to my ear, "Hello?"

Rachel sighs, "Babe, you don't sound too hot."

"Gee, thanks." I reply sarcastically, she laughs, "And I'm not feeling too hot Rachel."

"Well, I'm calling you to ask if you wanted me to come over later today for a girl's night." Before I can object, she adds in, "Let's face it, you really need your best friend right now. So it doesn't matter what you say, I'm coming over around 2." I look over at my clock, its 1:30 in the afternoon. "Be prepared because I'm going to bring the whole kit."

The kit was if we ever had any boy problems, which were all the time, one of us would bring nothing but pounds of junk food, sappy romantic movies, and sneak in a bottle of Jack Daniel's. I smiled at the thought of holding a bottle of whiskey in my hands. I groan to Rachel, "Fine."

"Be ready in 15 minutes!" Rachel squeals, "Loveyoubye!" I hear the click of her hanging up and I throw my phone back onto the bed.

I grab a fresh pair of my favorite black yoga pants with the pink and black zebra print fold over waist and a black lace tank top from my dresser. I bend over and open the bottom drawer for my black lace bra and matching panties. I then walk out of my room and head to the hall closet and grab a towel, a washcloth, and a razor.

"Mom!" I call out to check if she was home, and I don't get a response back meaning that I'm home alone for the rest of the day. I turn on the shower faucet and let it warm up while I take my clothes off.

I glance at myself in the mirror, noticing my smeared make up and closely examining my scar on my shoulder that I received when I was 6. When I was playing with a chef knife pretending I was a baton twirler. The end product of that was the knife ending up almost 2 inches into my shoulder.

I walk into the shower and slowly feel my shoulders relaxing under the warm water beating onto my back. As I wet my hair thoroughly, I think of the times of my childhood and how I was prone to accidents and how I still am. But, there's a difference between the past me and the me now. I used to be so innocent and care-free; I didn't need to worry about anything back then. Now, reality has taken its toll on my life that not everything is as perfect and harmonious as I thought it was. I've become such a strong woman who doesn't take any crap from anyone and I'm the one controlling my life not my mom like it was back then. I have been through things that not everyone my age can say that they have been through, but, at the end of the day, those same things I've been through made the person I am today.

I get out of the shower, feeling cleansed of not just of the dirt or residue I feel partly cleansed of my old self. The girl who let everyone walk all over her, the girl who was so scared of change and didn't take it well. I've changed for the better and I feel that Daniel has helped me become the person I am today and he helped me find the missing part of myself when I was so completely lost in this world.

Once I get dressed, brushed my teeth and hair, and put on my deodorant, I head straight to my room to retrieve my phone. Looking at my phone, I see that I have a new text message. My heart races as I wait for the message to open, thinking that it may have been Daniel who texted me. But my heart sinks as I realize it's my mom who texted me, reminding me to take out the trash tonight. I situate my phone between my hip and the fold over waist of my yoga pants.

The chiming of the doorbell suddenly fills my ears, and I bolt down the stairs to the front door. I pull back the door to find Rachel with a duffel bag and grocery bag what looked to be full of junk food, as she promised.

I move aside and before I give her permission to come in, she invites herself in. I smirk to myself and close the door behind her. Once Rachel hears the click of the door, she warps her arms around for a hug. I'm thrown off at first but then I hug her back just as tightly as she was holding me. She pulls away just as quickly as she pulled me into her embrace, "I came baring gifts." She smiles

"Joy," I sarcastically say with a smile on my face. I walk over to her duffel bag and zip it open, exposing the 20 DVD's and sure enough, a bottle of Jack Daniels. I snatch the bottle from the bag and open it up straight away, "I have been craving this ever since you called." I say before I drink directly from the bottle.

Rachel immediately comes over and takes the bottle away from me. "That's for later missy." I smile and apologize while she puts the bottle back in the bag and pulls out the stack of movies. "Which one do you want to watch first? It's between The Notebook or Titanic for sure. You can't have a romantic movie night without watching one of these first."

I debate which one I was in the mood to watch, The Notebook is a lot happier and more positive than Titanic. So I decide to go with The Notebook. While Rachel is putting in the movie, I take a bag of Cheetos, Doritos, pretzels, and Cheez-its, walk into the kitchen and grab a huge mixing bowl from the cabinet, dump all of the bags contents into the bowl, and mixing them all together.

We cuddle up next to each other and munch on our party mix throughout The Notebook, Dirty Dancing, West Side Story and Titanic. By the time Titanic finished, it was close to 10:30. Rachel decides that it was time for the talk, it was like our therapy sessions but this time, it's centered on me instead of the both of us.

Rachel commands me to sit on the couch while she sat on the recliner across the room; it was sort of like an actual therapy session. "Now," Rachel says in her serious voice, "Tell your best friend, Rachel, what's going on."

I look away from her and laugh, "Nothing."

Rachel gives me a look basically saying, 'I know you're lying and I'm going to kill you if you don't tell me right now' "If it was nothing, I wouldn't be here at your house in this chair, pretending to be a therapist asking you what's wrong. So, what is it?"

I sigh, giving in to tell Rachel what was wrong minus the… vampire part of the story. "Okay," I pause before pouring out my heart to her, "The thing is, I think Daniel and I might break up and I don't want that to happen."

She looks surprised, "Why would you think that you guys might break up?"

"Well, at the ball yesterday and Daniel broke some pretty bad news to me." I hate lying to Rachel, but, I have to keep Daniel's secret and the only way to do that is to lie. "He told me that he might be leaving town for good soon."

Rachel opens her mouth in shock, "Oh my gosh, I saw you and Daniel walk out, what happened then?"

"Umm," I had to come up with another lie, and quick, "I told him that we can't be together if he moves, and we started to argue. I ran into the town hall to you before things got worse between us."

She looks at me with a look of sympathy across her face, "I'm sorry, Lauren." She walks over, sits down next to me, and puts her arms around me. "It's just a little fight, you guys will get over it and make up soon, and I know it."

"I know, but, this is going to change everything between us. How can our relationship work out?" Rachel may think that I'm talking about 'him moving' but really I'm referring to the actual problem of Daniel being a vampire. I don't know what our relationship is of right now, I feel like we're obligated to end our relationship because this. At the same time, I still feel like I want, no, that I _need _to be with Daniel. I sigh out of frustration.

"It may seem hard now, but, it'll be just a minor bump on the road. I mean, sure, it will be difficult at first but if you guys really love each other like I think you guys do then it shouldn't be a problem. It won't feel like an obligation, it'll feel effortless. If you love someone, you're willing to work things out and in the end it doesn't matter about the difficulties, just know that you love him and are willing to do anything for him." She smiles, knowing that she's right.

The thought of me _loving_ Daniel makes me have butterflies in my stomach. We've never said I love you to each other or anything like that. I was afraid of the thought of loving ever again; for fear that something like this would one day come and ruin my happiness with Daniel. Like with Ian, I thought I loved him and look what happened to me in the end. But, Daniel is the complete opposite of Ian though. I know Daniel wouldn't hurt me after all we've been through. "You're right Rachel," I whisper to her, "I love him."

I realize at this very moment, that I'm in love with Daniel. It doesn't matter what he is, I love him and his flaws. I love him enough to want to make things work between us, regardless of his secret that could kill me. If I was going to die, I would die happily in love.

I immediately lift myself off of the couch and I head straight to the kitchen and grab the keys from the kitchen counter. Rachel follows me, "What are you doing?" She asks with concern and surprise of my sudden energy.

I walk over to the front door with Rachel still on my tail, "I'm going over to Daniel's, to tell him I love him and I don't want him to go. To basically tell him what you just said." I say as I tuck each pant leg of my yoga pants into my ugg boots. She doesn't say anything until I grasp my hand around my coat on the coat rack.

"Alright babe, good luck!" She hugs me once I have my coat on and I hug her back tightly. "He'll understand I'm sure that he will."

"Hopefully," I murmur to Rachel, "Thank you so much for everything Rachel. I don't know what I would do without you." I then pull away from her and open the front door. I jog over to my Porsche, quickly getting in behind the wheel. Before I turn the on the engine I take a deep breath, and say to myself, "I can do this." With those words, I turn the engine on and roll out of my driveway; on my way to my Daniel to confess my love for him.

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><p><strong><em>Rachel's dress: .comQ443-Mariposa-Q15_p_ _**

**_Lauren's dress: .com/5824_p__**


	14. Chapter 14

_**This chapter may contain material Rated MA. **Shout out to MysticBird106, thank you for the kind words and the support! Hopefully you and everyone else enjoys this chapter and story so far as much I have enjoyed writing it. Please R&R everyone, I need some more feedback. Thank you again!_

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><p><em><span>Chapter 14<span>_

When I finally pull into Daniel's driveway, I see that there are no lights shining through any of the windows. I pray that he isn't sleeping, if vampires can sleep anyway.

I jog up to the front door, trying not to get trenched by the hard downpour of the rain that had started half way through my drive to Daniel's. I hesitate to knock on the door at first, fearful of rejection, but I reassure myself that he wouldn't do that to me and finally, I knock lightly.

I stand there, starting to get cold from the rain seeping through my clothes. I wrap my arms around myself and stand there waiting for Daniel to come open the door. After waiting a minute, Daniel doesn't come get the door, I reach my arm out to knock on the door again but just then, the door opens. I see Daniel on the other side, holding a glass of what looked to be scotch and wearing a black button up shirt with long sleeves and black jeans, one of his usual outfits. And behind him a fireplace is brightly lit up of flames, illuminating the room with light.

When Daniel notices that it's me at his front door, he just leans in against the door frame with a black expression across his face, clearly not going to invite me in. Before he speaks, he takes a swig of his drink, "I'm surprised that you would show up to a vampire's house when it's getting dark, not a very smart move of you actually."

I ignore his statement, and frown with concern, "Are you drunk?" If he was, I wouldn't want to tell him anything I had to say while he was intoxicated. It wouldn't feel right or special to me.

"Actually, this is my first glass of the night." He lifts up his glass, tilts his head back, and throws back the drink and tosses the glass behind him into the fireplace. "Now," he says with a slight glare to his eyes with some venom in his voice, "Why are you here?"

I gulp, "I'm here to tell you something important." I pause and add, "It's about us."

His expression doesn't change when I say this, no curiosity on his face. Daniel smirks, "Well, whatever you have to say, I don't want to hear it because quite frankly I don't care." I take a step back from him, shocked that he's acting this way.

I frown at him, "Why are you being like this? This isn't the real you."

He laughs darkly, "Actually, this _is_ the real me. I'm a vampire remember? A monster, so I might as well act the part." He hoists himself off of the doorframe, "So, will you just do me a favor and go, I don't want you here."

Daniel starts closing the door; I slam my hand against it and push it wide open. He doesn't try to fight back. "Daniel," I saw softly say to him, "I know you're only acting like this to push me away from you. You're afraid that you're going to hurt me. You might as well stop trying to push me away because I'm not going anywhere."

A dark smile appears across his face, "Oh, yes you are." He steps out of his house and strides to me. Daniel lifts me up and puts me over his shoulder, leaving me dangling. I start kicking and screaming for him to let me go, but he doesn't listen. He keeps walking to I don't know where until shortly, he drops me to my feet right in front of the driver's side of my car, and holds the door wide open. "Get in," he demands.

I fold my arms across my chest in protest and declare, "No."

"Get in." Daniel says again through clenched teeth, sounding scary, but I don't move a muscle. He points his index finger to the driver seat and glares at me, "Lauren, get in the car now or you're going to regret it."

I take a step back and firmly say, "No, Daniel."

Just then, I see him move in a blur and in a matter of seconds, he has me pinned to the car with his hand around my throat. His face forms into the demon like face I saw in the woods near the town hall, and he bares his fangs."GO!" He growls.

I choke back a scream, knowing that's what he really wanted to hear. I knew that he wouldn't hurt me, since he put no pressure around my throat to choke me; he just wanted to scare me and it almost worked. "It's not going to work Daniel." I calmly say as I see his face slowly change back to his regular human one. He drops the hand grasping my throat and I see his expression falter for a moment to a look of remorse. As quickly as it came, it disappeared back to his angered expression.

"Why aren't you leaving?" He whispers angrily.

"Because I'm not going to give up on you," I simply say, "That would be the easy way out if I did, but, since when do I ever take the easy way out of anything?" I smile warmly to him.

I notice that his hard expression is slowly starting to break away. I softly stroke the side of his wet face with the back of my hand, causing him to break away his wall that he put up more rapidly. "Why are you doing this Lauren? Really?" He whispers softly with a hint of irritation still in his voice and a furrow in his brow.

"I'm so selfish for doing this but you would do the same if you were in my situation," I whisper back, "I could just let you go like you want me to but that would mean me dying inside, just thinking about living without you would be the hardest thing for me to deal with."

He pushes my hand off of his face and turns away from me and walks to the rear of my car, "You're going to have to cope with it then." He turns around to look at me, frowns and starts to raise his voice angrily. "I'm a vampire! What part of that don't you get? I'm a cold-blooded killer who kills anyone and everyone for my blood thirst; you should get out while you still can before I kill you too!"

I walk over to Daniel and place a hand on his shoulder, "I know you're not a killer, if you were, I would have been dead a long time. But I'm not, which proves to me that you're not a cold-blooded monster like you say you are."

He doesn't say anything; he just looks at me with a soft and hurt expression. He slightly flinches as I stroke his face but he doesn't pull away. "Daniel, it doesn't matter to me that you're a vampire. It's a part of who you are and I gladly accept it, good or bad. You know why? Because I love you Daniel, all of you despite your flaws and you being a vampire doesn't change the feelings that I have for you. Nothing ever will." I stand on my tippy toes and kiss him.

Daniel partly kisses me back, I can tell that he's trying to control himself and not kiss me, but he's failing at it. "No." he whispers against my lips.

"Yes," I whisper back, "Let me love you as much as I know that you love me." I kiss his lips softly and he still is trying to retrain himself by still kissing me back with caution.

Finally, he moans in defeat and cradles his hands on either side of my face and crushes his lips to mine. We stand there in the rain, kissing each other with such passion and love that I start to burn up in the cold wet rain. I'm then suddenly overcome by the need to want Daniel, all of him. No matter what it took, I would have him.

Daniel moves his hands down to my waist as I wrap my arms around his neck and as I slightly open my mouths to let him enter his tongue, our tongues intertwine with each other almost as if our tongues were dancing together. I taste his mint breath combined with the slight taste of whiskey, my favorite. The taste of him makes me want him even more.

I then, jump up and wrap my legs around Daniel's waist/hips and he catches me, leaving his arms wrapped around my waist to support my weight. We stay standing like that for not even a minute until I feel Daniel walking us back into his house. He backs us up into the door, closing it and he rushes us down the hall, but stops, pressing me against the wall.

In the heat of the moment, I then start unbuttoning his shirt frantically from the top to the bottom. Once I get the shirt fully unbuttoned, I rip the shirt off of Daniel's shoulders with his help and toss the shirt aside. Revealing his hardcore abs, I take a moment to look and feel them before I put my arms up in the air to let Daniel pull my tank top off over my head. When he throws the tank top on the floor, I press my hands on either side of his face to help deepen our passionate kiss. Until Daniel pulls his face away and slowly moves his lips down my neck. I moan in pleasure and start breathing heavily, out of breath from the intense kiss.

Daniel finally moves us to his bedroom; opens the door with such ease and closes it behind us, sealing the deal that we were about to make love. I was a little nervous but I knew Daniel wouldn't hurt me and will be careful with me. My nerves slowly subdue to each of Daniel's kisses, they helped soothe my nerves.

I unwrap my legs from Daniel's waist placing my feet on the floor and he lets go of me. I reach for Daniel's pants. I struggle to unbuckle his belt, unbutton and unzip his pants, for my hands we starting to shake. Once I do manage to get his jeans undone, I pull his pants down to his ankles. He kicks them off of his ankles, the pants hitting the wall behind me, the only article of clothing he had on now was his black brief boxers. Daniel lifts me back up in his arms, and I instinctively wrap my legs back around him, my hands going through his hair as we crush our lips back together.

Daniel leads us over to his bed and lays me down gently onto it, with my head on the pillows. Daniel pushes himself on top of my body kissing me tenderly until he pulls away, sits up, and tugs at my pants until they were down to my knees, when I lifted one knee at a time into my chest to get the pants completely off. Daniel then takes my pants, bundles them up and throws them behind him.

He then crawls back on top of me as I wrap my legs back around his hips while he wraps his arms around my torso; his hands lingering where the hooks of my bra were. Daniel pulls away from my lips and starts tenderly kissing my jaw then moves his lips slowly down to my neck and back up again. "I will love you with all of me forever," he whispers to me softly, his voice velvety and rich.

I take my hands and place them on either side of his face, and pull his face close to mine. We both gaze into each other's eyes, which sparkled with excitement and happiness. I stroke his face when I softly say, "I love you so much that no amount of time will change the way I feel about you, if anything, it'll make these feelings grow stronger." I smash my lips to his, tears starting to well over my eyes from happiness.

Daniel feels the tears streaming down my face; he pulls back and looks me deeply in the eyes, "What's wrong?" He takes one of his hands off of my back and gently places on it on the side of my face and wipes away a tear with his thumb.

I hold Daniel's hand against my face and rub circles into the back of his hand. "Nothing," I mutter, "I'm just so happy." I crush my lips to his again, and this time Daniel doesn't pull back.

As we're kissing, Daniel unclasps the hooks of my bra. He doesn't try to pull off my bra, so, I take it off the rest of the way and toss it aside to the left of me. He then removes his boxers and kicks them off and at the same time I slid my panties off.

Now, we're completely naked, with our bodies pressed together but before Daniel goes any further. He pulls away to look into my eyes, "Are you sure you want to do this?" I'm too out of breath to say anything, "Especially with me? Are you sure?"

I smile and reluctantly nod, and whisper to him, "You're the only one I would want to make love with. Ever."

Daniel smiles, "I love you," And before I could say it back, his lips are already pressed on mine, silencing me. Again, his kisses move down to my neck, then, he puts his free hand on my outer thigh and smoothly and gently rubs it. He moves his hand up to my hip and back down to the bottom of my thigh. I slightly open my thighs a little more and I raise my hips ever so slightly, ready.

When he enters me, my breathing hitches. I didn't expect it to hurt as much as it did when I lost my virginity to… Ian. But, it was sort of a good kind of hurt, the pain is there but there is a hint of pleasure along with it. I wrap my arms around Daniel's neck, run my fingers through his still wet hair and force his head down to mine; I put my forehead against his and slowly kiss his lips.

He kisses me back just as softly and slowly. At that moment, I whimper against his lips out of pain and pleasure for Daniel's thrust that was a little hard for my liking right now. I knew that he knew it hurt me because he didn't try to do it again. As our kiss heightens, I start nibbling on Daniel's bottom lip which makes him groan in satisfaction.

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><p>Afterwards, Daniel flops over onto the spot of the bed next to me and wraps his arms around me. I snuggle onto his chest and glance over at the nightstand and I see the digital clock gleaming the time of 12:36 a.m. Which means Daniel and I had sex for a good hour and a half even though it didn't feel that long at all, it felt more like 30 minutes. An amazing 30 minutes or an hour and a half I should say. This night has been one of the best nights of my life, far none. And who better to spend the night with the love of my life.<p>

Daniel notices the time also, "You should get some sleep." He says as he massages my back, running his hands up and down my back.

"I'm not tired though." I lie, I was starting to get pretty tired but I didn't want to fall asleep just yet.

"It doesn't look like it," he quickly points out, "You've had a long night."

I smile and give out a small laugh, "You mean _we've_ had a long night." I look up at Daniel to see him also smiling. "Plus, I'm afraid to go to sleep," I say honestly still looking up at him.

He furrows his brow in confusion looking down at me, "Why?"

I sigh and look at my hands on Daniel's care chest, fearful that if I looked at him I may just cry, "Well, I'm afraid that when I wake up in the morning, you'll be gone. I'm afraid that you'll regret what we just did tonight and that you'll permanently leave me for good."

He lifts his arm that was around my waist and places his hand on my chin, tilting it up so I could look at him. "I would never do that to you, I love you too much to be able to do that. And as for the regret part, yes I did regret what we did." I become sad and disappointed that he didn't enjoy it as much as I did, "At first, I did, but as we got more… intimate, I realized that I _can_ control my thirst around you and that I may not be such a monster after all. Your love is all I need to motivate me into becoming a better more humane… vampire." He kisses the top of my head, "If I could take back tonight, I wouldn't. Tonight was one of the best nights in my existence; I wouldn't have it any other way. I promise you that, I'll be here, always."

I slowly press my mouth onto his and kiss him softly and tenderly. He returns the kiss immediately but he then pulls away after a minute of kissing and places his head on top of mine.

I didn't realize how tired I was until I rested my head back on Daniel's chest. I pull the covers higher up on me, close my eyes and snuggle deeper into Daniel, "Goodnight Daniel, I love you." I say smiling, thinking of tonight's events and how well it all worked out. Love really does find a way.

I feel Daniel's lips press on the top of my head, "Goodnight Lauren, I love you too and sweet dreams." He closes his hold on me slightly tighter, making me feel more safe and secure. With the trust of Daniel being here in bed with me when I woke in the morning, and the thought of him never leaving me, soothes me and I drift off into a deep, peaceful sleep.


	15. Chapter 15

_Chapter 15_

I wake in the morning to the feel and the sight of the sunlight from the sun streaming down on my face. I open my eyes all the way, to see the backyard beautifully lit up by the dawn and I smile. I instantly think of last night's events, and still physically and emotionally feeling them.

I've been happier than I have ever been in such a long time, and I have Daniel to thank for that. I felt so relieved when I finally told him my feelings for him and that it didn't matter what he was, he was still perfect to me no matter what. Last night, couldn't have gone any better, we both showed our true feelings for each other in such passion. I truly love him and nothing could change that.

I turn myself around to look at Daniel and see he's already looking over at me; I smile, "Good morning."

"Good morning," he says back and our lips meet for a second, a peck on the lips. When he pulls back he also smiles at me, "Why are you up so early?"

I look over at the clock and sure enough, the numbers say it is 7:30 a.m. I shrug my shoulders and simply reply, "I don't know, maybe it was the thought of being able to wake up to you this morning that motivated me."

He smiles and wraps his arms around me, "Well, since you're up, do you want to go out?"

I frown up at him in curiosity, "Out where?" Where would we go out this early in the morning? I don't think any place would be open this early.

"Out to go get breakfast, if you want to." He rubs his hand up and down my arm slowly and soothingly.

"Mmm. Maybe later," I grin, thinking of something else we could do, "I'd rather do this." I put my lips on his a little too roughly, but, he kisses me back with the same amount of roughness and we kiss like that for awhile until I have to pull away from being so out of breath.

Daniel then moves his lips to my jaw and kisses it lightly and tenderly. Something suddenly comes over me and I quickly crawl on top of Daniel and start kissing his stomach, slowly moving my lips up his body. When my lips get to his neck, I see Daniel look up and stare at something towards the door. Before I could ask him what was wrong, I heard it, "Alright! It's about time you guys had make up sex!"

I quickly get off of Daniel and hide my body under the sheets, pulling them up to my bare breasts. I glare at Henry, looking at Daniel and me with a stupid grin across his face. I roll my eyes at him, too mad and embarrassed to say anything.

"What the hell man?" Daniel barks, "Have you ever heard of knocking?"

Henry laughs, "I've heard of it, but I don't exactly know what it is." He smiles, and I still glare at him, while Daniel, smirks. I don't find it enjoyable when someone walks in on me about to have sex, not the slightest bit. "But now on a serious note, I need to talk to you. Now." Henry then looks over at me, "Sorry to steal your man, but he was mine first."

I don't laugh at the little gay joke like Daniel and Henry are, I continue giving him the nasty look I've had on my face every since he walked in. "Alright," Daniel says, "Just give me a minute."

"Fine," he says plainly and with that, he looks over at me one more time and walks out of the room, closing the door behind him.

When he walks out of the room, I sigh and look over at Daniel, "Why are you letting him get away with that?"

He throws back the covers and lifts himself off of the bed, and walks toward his dresser. I sit up, and move myself to sit on the edge of the bed with the covers still wrapped around me, "I'm not going to, he won't know when and where or how, but, I'll get him for it. His crime won't go unpunished." He smiles at me over his shoulder while he pulls on a pair of black underwear. Daniel then opens another drawer of his dresser and pulls out a pair of black jeans and also pulls those on.

"Alright," I say in defeat, "I guess that's fine." Daniel walks over to my side of the bed and puts his hands on either side of me and leans on the bed. "At least you're going to get him back right?" I smile optimistically when he leans his forehead onto mine.

"Exactly," He gives me a peck on my lips, "So, what do you want to do when I get Henry out of here?" He asks smirking.

"Who says I'm leaving?" I barely hear Henry shout back, which must mean he was pretty far away to be eavesdropping by the door.

I frown, "How can he hear us?"

He smiles, "Call it a special vampire trick."

Not only do vampires have speed but they have amazing hearing? What's next, they can turn into bats? "What else can you do?" I ask, intrigued now.

"I'll tell you later, I promise." He pauses, "It may be awhile talking to Henry, and so, you can get dressed and go out if you want." He suggests, clearly not wanting me to hear what they need to talk about with each other.

"Actually, I should probably take a bath or a shower. I was hoping you would join me, but since you want me to leave…" I break off, with a fake disappointed look on my face.

Daniel laughs quietly, "Fine," he says in defeat when his signature sexy smirk appears across his face, "How about you go get ready and I'll come in when I'm done?" He suggests in his smooth, super sexy voice.

"I can't wait," I smile, and I close the distance between our faces. I then try to wrap my arms around his neck to make him stay longer but he pulls away before I can. He stands up straight and walks over to the door, "Wait." I say

He turns to look at me, "Yes?"

"How am I supposed to get to the bathroom when I'm completely naked without Henry seeing me?"

He laughs, and zooms across the room and a few seconds later; he shows up at the end of the bed with a red bathroom robe in his arms, "Here," he says as he places on it on the bed, "Now, I'll be right back." And with that said, he quickly walks out of the room before I could object.

I smile to myself as I reach across the bed and retrieve Daniel's bathroom robe. I slip my arms into the fuzzy and warm robe and wrap the rest of my body with it by tying the belt like tie attached to the robe. Once I covered my body with some type of clothing, I throw the covers off of me and rise to my feet.

I walk out of the bedroom quickly for I didn't want to take any chances of Henry seeing me. Once I get to the large bathroom, I quietly shut the door behind me, lock it and head straight to the closest. From the closest I retrieve a toothbrush, a small tube of toothpaste, two towels, a sponge, and a hairbrush. I then walk over to the counter to put down the towels and place the sponge and hairbrush on top of them.

I run over to the Jacuzzi bathtub, turn on the faucet where the letter H is engraved in it and let the water run. I then block the drain for the water to stay in the tub and move to the sink with the toothbrush and toothpaste still in my hand; turn on the sink faucet and start brushing my teeth.

I throw away the toothbrush and used toothpaste container in the trash while I rinse out my mouth with water, ridding my mouth of any toothpaste residue. The moment I'm done, I walk over to the tub and turn off the perfectly temperature water, grab the sponge and place it on the side of the tub. Just then, there is a light knock on the door. "It's Daniel," Daniel's voice informs me.

"Coming!" I pull my hair up and tie a rubber band, making a ponytail then I rush to the door, unlock it, and open it. When I look at Daniel, I see that he has a bright red rose in his mouth and a champagne bottle with two champagne glasses in his hands. I smile and step aside for him to walk in.

"Is Henry gone?" I ask Daniel with hope in my voice. "Are we alone now?"

He walks over to the Jacuzzi tub, puts the bottle and glasses down, and grasps the rose from his mouth and starts picking off the petals and dropping them on top of the bubbles. When he's finished, he throws the remains of the flower in the rash, walks over and wraps his arms around me. "Yes, we're alone." He quietly says with his seductive smile.

"It's about time," I whisper against his lips. As Daniel was about to kiss my lips, I pull away and walk over to the tub. Before I step into the tub, I slowly remove Daniel's robe from my shoulders until it falls to the floor. I step into the warm bubbled water and lie in it until my entire body is under the water except from my neck up. "Aren't you coming in?" I utter sensually.

Right away, Daniel unbuttons and unzips his jeans, and removes them along with his boxers. Once he's completely unclothed, he steps into the Jacuzzi tub and sits up on the opposite side of me against the tub. The tub is so lengthy that we both fit without a problem.

Daniel then reaches over to the bottle and glasses, opens the bottle with a pop as it the foam from the champagne flows over the bottle. He holds the two glasses in one hand as he pours the liquid into the champagne glasses. He puts the bottle back where it was and hands me a glass. I gladly take it, "What's with the champagne?" I question him after I take a sip.

He smiles, "I thought we could celebrate with a little something."

I give me a quizzical look, "Celebrate what?"

"Us," he simply says then he takes a gulp of champagne.

"That's so sweet of you," I say sincerely, "Is there something you need to tell me?" I cut to the chase.

Daniel takes another sip of his drink and has a look of confusion across his face, "What do you mean? I have something to tell you, since when?" I look over him and see that he really has no idea what I'm talking about.

"You know, with Henry." I hate to be so noisy but I had to know, it was Henry after all. I never know what he's up to. "What were you guys talking about?"

He smirks again, "Wouldn't you like to know?" Before I could respond, he adds, "I can't tell, it's part of the bro code." He acts like it's something so sacred.

I giggle, "The bro code? Have you been watching How I Met Your Mother lately?"

He gives out a small laugh, "No, I've never watched nor will ever watch that show," he pauses for a moment, "In all seriousness, I really can't tell you, as much as I want to." The way he says it makes it sound like it was about me.

I decide to leave it alone for a while and go to another subject, "So, what else can vampires do besides having great hearing and super speed?" I was genuinely curious in what abilities vampires have; we might as well get this conversation out of the way even though I'll be a little freaked out by this conversation.

"We can't die if that's what you're really asking. Actually we can but it can be difficult for a human to; we would have to be stabbed in the heart, preferably stakes though. It gets the job done quicker." He says this so nonchalantly.

I don't want to think about Daniel being staked so I ask another question which has been bothering me, "When you were helping me pick up my things the day of Abbey's accident, did you really get burned by my rosary or was I just seeing things?"

"No, you weren't seeing things, that's another downfall to being a vampire, you get burned by a cross, and holy water is like acid." He says with no problems at all.

I nod, "So, are you saying that everything in those old movies, like Dracula, are true?"

Daniel laughs, "No, there are similarities though. The crosses, stakes, and holy water are true. I can't turn into a bat, I don't burn or sparkle in the sunlight, I don't sleep in a coffin, and garlic doesn't harm me." He drinks the rest of his alcohol and pours himself more, "Any other questions?"

I nod, "A lot more actually."

He laughs to himself, "Of course. Go ahead, ask away and don't hold back. Today is your day to learn more about what I am."

I decide to ask the question I really wanted to avoid, "Do you drink human blood? Were you the one who almost killed Abbey?" I don't know what I would do if he said yes to both of my questions, it would hurt me.

He sighs, "No to both of your questions. I drink animal blood to sustain the hunger for fresh blood, and it makes me strong but not strong enough. That's why I also drink human blood from the blood bags I get at the hospital." I stiffen and he notices this, "No, don't worry; I don't kill humans to get the blood. I haven't killed anyone in a very long time."

The way that he looked when he said this, looked as if he didn't want to get into that so I left it alone. "Do you know who almost killed Abbey? Was it Henry?"

He shook his head, "No, he's just like me and doesn't kill humans which means, there's another vampire in town and I don't know who. I'm trying to find out who it could be and so far, I'm coming up blank." I become rigid at the thought of another vampire in town. Just thinking that, made me feel that no one was truly safe, especially the ones that I loved. As if reading my thoughts, Daniel replies, "I assure you, you have me word that I won't let anyone harm you or your friends and family."

I believe him and calm down, partially, I go on with my next question, "How many vampires are there, in general? How many would you say there were?"

"I can't put a number on that answer but I would say there isn't too many, especially in America. In Europe or in any of the other countries, there are a lot more."

"Do you know any out of the country?"

Daniel nods, "A few, most of them live in London or Paris, my hometown. But I haven't really talked to any of them since I moved to the Americas."

That makes me curious to how old Daniel really is, he may look 19 but he is definitely not. "How long have you been a vampire?"

He drinks and looks off somewhere, lost in thought, "I was known as Gustave Chevalier back then when I was born, March 14th, 1782. But I wasn't changed into a vampire until 1801. The man who changed me into what I am was the man named Barton Leveque, a man that no one knew heard of. In 1800, my father and I contracted small pox; we were as good as dead. My father was the first one to die from it, my last person I had on this earth, gone. I begged for death to put me out of my misery and loneliness. Barton then came out of nowhere, offering to make me a vampire to save my life; he needed me to help him and needed someone like me but I declined. I guess my response meant nothing to him because he just killed me anyway by feeding me his blood." He pauses and looks over at me, "The only way to become a vampire is if you are fed my blood, the blood is very 'venomous' to humans and kills you instantly."

I'm speechless so he goes on, "I woke up from the darkness of death and he was gone. Later on in my life, I found out he got killed before he could tell me why exactly he needed me. But he left me by myself to go through the process in becoming a vampire and it just wasn't a good time for me."

I felt so bad for him, his life basically consisted of everyone he loved dying or leaving him. I would never do that to him, I couldn't even consider it. I was about to respond to his confession until he says, "But now through all of the pain and neglect, I'm glad and thankful."

I furrow my brow in confusion, he just told me it was the worst thing ever but now he's telling me he was glad and thankful. "Why?"

Daniel looks me in the eyes, "Because if it wasn't through all of it, I wouldn't have met you and you're worth every ounce of that hurt and pain."

I was in awe, I couldn't say anything to that other than express how I felt and how much that I loved him. I crawl over to him and kiss him softly. He reluctantly kisses me back, but, the kiss didn't last long for Daniel pulls away, smiles, and his blue eyes penetrate mine. "Anymore questions?"

I smile warmly to him and say, "Yes, what would you say if I wanted to stay here with you for the rest of the day?"

He smirks, "I'd say, stay here another night."

I laugh, "You know I can't, especially with Rachel and my mom." I freeze. Crap! I forgot all about them, as terrible as that sounds. Rachel and my mom are worried sick about me and they have no idea where Daniel lived. But I left my cell phone in my jacket which was still in the car. I groan in irritation, this is going to ruin a perfect moment.

He furrows his brow, "What's wrong?" I pull myself out of the tub and retrieve Daniel's robe off of the floor to quickly struggle to put it on at first.

"I forgot about Rachel and my mom!" I quickly exclaim, "I need to go get my phone from the car! I'll be right back!" I jog out of the bathroom and go to the bedroom to grab my boots. Once I get them on, I head out the front door; I didn't need to worry about anyone seeing me because Daniel had absolutely no neighbors and his driveway is so far away from the road that you barely see the house.

I pace to my car and pull the driver's door open; I put a knee on the seat and bend over to the passenger seat. I search my coat pockets until I finally find it and fish it out; I look at the touch screen, lit up with about 20 messages from Rachel. None from my mom though, I wonder why.

I go the dialer on my phone and press 3, where Rachel is on my speed dial. As it rings, I press it to my ear; she picks up on the 2nd ring. "What happened to you?" Rachel says calmly and collectively.

"Umm, I kind of got held up last night. Sorry, did my mom ever come home?"

"No, she actually called the house and said that she got a hotel out of town for a big meeting in Detroit going on today or something like that."

I sigh a sigh of relief, thank goodness that I didn't have some explaining to do with her, but Rachel on the other hand… "Did you two make up?"

I blush, thinking of last night, "Definitely," I sigh.

Rachel gasps, "You two didn't do what I think you two did!" When I didn't say anything, it confirmed her suspicions, "Oh my gosh! I need details NOW! Was it good? Was it bad? What was it like?"

I laugh, "I'll tell you about it when I get home. I promise!" I didn't know exactly when that would be since I said that I was going to spend the rest of the day with Daniel but Rachel doesn't need to know that right now though.

I leap out of the car, still with the phone in my ear, and close the door. When I turn around to head back to Daniel, someone's standing right there, a girl with blonde hair and brown eyes. She looked familiar but I couldn't put my finger on it, until I realized, it was the girl in my bathroom that one night with the demon face, a vampire just like Daniel and Henry. Maybe this was the vampire that Daniel was talking about earlier.

I freeze where I stand and tell Rachel, "I've got to go, see you later." I click the end button and shakily say to the female, "It's you. Why are you here?" I was a little embarrassed that she found me naked with only just a robe on but mostly, I was scared. What if she was here to kill me? Or worse, to kill Daniel? I don't know how capable this female was.

She smiles darkly at me and simply replies, "I'm here to pay you and Daniel a visit."


	16. Chapter 16

_Chapter 16_

The blonde female forcefully grabs my arm and heads into Daniel's house. "What are you doing? Let me go!" I demand. As we're walking down the hall, Daniel shows up out of the door to the bathroom in his black jeans.

When we get close to him, the girl practically throws me to Daniel and before I could fall, Daniel catches me, glaring at the girl in anger and shock, "Jacqueline, what are you doing here?" He says in more of a surprise tone than an anger one. I look between the two of them in confusion, they clearly know each other. But how?

"First of all, I hate it when you call me by Jacqueline, call me Jackie from now on. And second of all, I believe that you already know why I'm here, Gustave or should I say Daniel." She laughs and says with her French accent, "How original of you."

Surprise wipes off of Daniel's face, replacing it with anger. He glares at her with such hate that it starts to make me feel bad for her because I have a feeling he's going to do something terrible to her for ever touching me. "I think you better leave if you know what's good for you." When she doesn't move an inch, he says, "_Now_."

Jackie puts her hands up in innocence, "Hey, I just wanted to talk." But she smiles as she says it so it clearly means, it's more than talking she wants.

"Whenever you want to 'talk'," Daniel does quotation marks with his middle and index fingers, "it always ends up badly." All of a sudden Daniel moves in a blur and the next thing I see is Daniel choking Jackie, pinning her against the wall. "Get out; I'm not going to tell you again." He says through gritted teeth.

Jackie bites her lower lip, "You're sexy when you're mad and you know that I like it rough, Gustave. If anything, you're making me want to stay even more." She says with a small smile on her face which makes Daniel even angrier so he squeezes his grasp around her throat even tighter. She chokes out, "Alright, I'll go."

Daniel roughly removes his hand and Jackie drops to the floor with her hand on her throat, coughing hysterically. Once she recovers from Daniel's grasp, she lifts herself off of the floor, looks over at Daniel and says, "Are you trying to pretend what happened yesterday didn't happen?" She says to Daniel smiling, "Well, it did and you can't change that. Are you going to keep lying to that bitch you quote on quote love?"

I glance over at Daniel, confused, "What is she talking about Daniel?"

Jackie looks over at me, glaring, "You really want to know what happened? Gustave and I had sex the night before in that very same bed." She jabs a finger over to Daniel's bedroom door down the hall. "Isn't that right _Daniel_?" She then looks back to Daniel.

I turn my attention back over to Daniel, who is just staring at the floor with a blank expression across his face. I frown, "Is this true Daniel? Did you really have sex with her?" He doesn't say anything or even glance at my direction. I walk in front of him and place my hands on either side of his face, making him look at me, "Say something!"

Daniel looks at me with a look so full of hurt that makes me want to cry, "It's true." He mutters to me with dread in his voice.

I look at him with complete shock, I can't even say anything to him right now; I'm too anger and hurt to be able to.

Jackie is the one to speak, "Well, my job here is done." She walks away and before she walks out of the door, she's turns back and looks at me, "Have a nice day." She says smiling and with that, she leaves.

As soon as Jackie leaves, my eyes immediately sting with tears. I rip my hands off of Daniel's face and race off to his bedroom. Once I get in, I slam the door behind me, when I turn around; Daniel is right in front of me.

I take my hand and slap him across the face with all of my might. I clearly slapped him good because there's a perfect imprint of my hand on the side of his face. He doesn't call out in pain or anything, he's a still mass. I walk away angrily and pick up my pants and panties off of the floor. I throw off my shoes and pull on my panties and yoga pants. Once I get those on, I put my boots back on. While looking around the room for my bra, Daniel steps in front of me before I could find it. "What do you want from me?"

He has an expression full of sympathy across his face, I don't want his sympathy; I just want to get away from him. "Just let me explain, please." Daniel places his onto mine and immediately I pull them away from his touch.

"Talk then. Please, explain this to me." I say with an attitude. "I would _love _to know why you cheated on me with that psycho skank."

Daniel sighs and says gravely, "I only slept with her because I had to."

Now I'm really starting to get pissed off, "Why the FUCK did you have to sleep with her?"

"Because she threatened to kill you if I didn't. I didn't enjoy one second of it; I don't have any feelings for her. I did but not anymore nor will I ever again; it was a long time ago." He sounded genuine about what he was saying but I have to know what happened a long time ago between them.

"Why would you believe anything that she says Daniel? She has no reason to kill me; she was bluffing just to get in your pants." I say frustrated.

"Actually, she does have reasons to kill you. If what she told me was true, she is still in love with me, which I highly doubt. And the other reason… I can't tell you that part."

I frown, "Why not? Why can't you tell me?"

"There are things that you don't know, and I don't want you to know. It kills me to keep them secrets but I have to, for your own good"

"Why would you not want me to know?"

"Because it's dangerous for you to know!" He exclaims, "That's all I'm going to say about that. So don't bring it up."

I glare at him, I think I should know but he's being so stubborn. Fine, be that way Daniel. I keep picturing what Jackie and Daniel did in the bed that was not even a foot away from me right now. I look over at it with disgust, "Fine, what happened with you and Jackie then? When you guys were dating? I deserve an explanation, no holding back." I say bitterly.

He sighs again, "It was1836, I was attending Maria Amalia's Ball, the queen of France at the time. I knew her husband, Louis Philippe I, I guess you could say we were friends. But anyway, I was attending the ball one night when I saw her from across the room, Jacqueline Beaumanoir. She was born in 1818 and she was 18 years old at the time. There was something so captivating about her, that I knew that I wanted her." He pauses and looks to me, I say nothing so he continues, "We fell in love, blah blah blah, you don't want to about that stuff. Well, at least I thought it was love. Somehow, she knew my secret, that I was a vampire, and begged me to change her so we could be together forever. I did it willingly, believing what she said was true. Turns out, she lied to me, used me just so she could become a vampire, something that she wanted before but now she regrets."

I don't say anything to this; I did feel bad for him being played like that by that Jackie bitch. But, I was still angry with him for sleeping with her. "Why did you do it?"

He frowns, "I just told you, I did it to save you."

"There's another reason, I know there is, enough with the lies! Enough with the secrets! Just please tell me _why_. You owe me that much." I was about to cry again but it takes every ounce of me not to.

He groans in frustration, "Fine, I did to save your life and to test if I still felt something for her. But when everything was over and down with, all I felt towards her was hate and pity. All I could think about the whole time was you, and only you. I proved to myself that I moved on from Jacqueline. I swear on my life, that it meant nothing to me, absolutely nothing."

Daniel reaches for my hands and this time, I don't pull away. I stand there and stare at our intertwined hands, debating on whether or not I should still be with him or not. It will kill me if we ever broke up but I knew it would be for the best at the moment. There was one question I had to ask before I broke up with him, "Just tell me why you had to do it when we were dating."

He didn't notice the past tense reference, either that or he just denied the fact, he stares down at our hands and replies, "We weren't dating that night, Lauren."

I frown, "So, that night in the woods outside of the town hall, was that your way of breaking up with me?"

"Yes, I did it to protect you, to keep you safe from me. But now I know that, it was a stupid choice of me to do that to you. And I am so sorry, if I could take it back, I would. Because if I hadn't broken up with you, I wouldn't have slept with Jacqueline."

I ignore his plea of forgiveness, "Then think of this as my way of breaking up with you," I pause, the next words I knew were going to destroy me and ruin everything between Daniel and I, my eyes tear up as I say, "I hate you, I don't want to see you ever again. Jackie can have you for all I care now, she won and I don't care about it. It was never my battle to win. I hope that you'll be happy with Jackie; you two really deserve each other." I shrug off his robe off of me angrily and shove it into his chest. "Congratulations Daniel, you used me, I hope you're proud of it." I pick my bra off of the floor go into the hall and grab my tank top with Daniel behind me.

I pull my tank top on as I hear Daniel pleads, "Don't do this Lauren; you know none of what you're saying is true."

"Really? Because I'm not the one who slept with my ex and pretended nothing was wrong with it. And the worst part is that we were dating when you decided to do it. It may have been over for you that night, but it wasn't for me because I actually loved you. So technically, you really did cheat on me. Now, you have what you wanted all along, we're over." I look over at his hurt expression on his flawless face one last time before I walk out of the door and slamming it behind me, sealing the deal, our fate.


	17. Chapter 17

_Chapter 17- Daniel's P.O.V_

It's been a full 2 days of me not talking or seeing Lauren. Ever since she found out about me having sex with Jacqueline, something that I regret with all of my heart, if I had one anyway. Maybe this is for the best; she'll be safer if she wasn't with me. After all, I'm a cheater as she said and I used her. I didn't use her; I would never do that to Lauren. I wasn't that type of man.

I sit on the leather couch in front of the lit fireplace, staring into the flames as I take another swig of the half empty bottle of whiskey. Thinking of the time when I first met Lauren, things were so different back then.

Just then, I hear the front door open but I don't even bother looking, content with my whiskey and loneliness. I listen to the clink of heels meeting with the wooden floor as they walk towards me. I feel the body settle down beside me. "Gustave," Jacqueline whispers to me, "You can't keep doing this to yourself you know."

I don't look at her when she speaks to me; I just keep staring into the fire ahead of me. "Go away Jacqueline," I growl at her, "I don't want to hear it."

She puts a hand on my knee, at the feel of her touch, I instantly get up and zoom across the room, "Look at the bright side, we can be together at last with no interruptions." I try not to laugh at her desperateness to be with me.

I glare at the flames, "What makes you think I want to be with you? If anything, I want you to be dead right now."

Jacqueline laughs and smiles, "If you wanted me dead, I would be dead right now. But I'm not, which must mean that you still have feelings for me." I look over at her, glaring, "Don't try to deny it because it's true."

I immediately zoom across the room and slam her down to the floor and my grasp puting more pressure around her throat. "Why are you really here Jacqueline?" I shout in her face. I didn't deny that I still felt something for her, because it was true. I still felt like I loved her, but my love for Lauren overpowers my old flames for Jacqueline.

She smiles at me, which makes me squeeze her throat even more, "What if I told you I was here to get you back?" She struggles to say.

"I'd say, _bull shit_." I say through clenched teeth, "Tell me the real reason why you're here in town!"

Jacqueline pushes me off of her body and tries to run out the door. I quickly grab her arm and throw her to the floor again; I grasp the neck of the bottle and slam it on the floor. The glass breaks, scattering across the wooden floor. I then take the piece of glass I'm holding in my hand and impale her stomach. She howls in pain, now it's my turn to smile, "Have you forgotten that I'm older than you? That's makes me stronger! Now, give me an answer." I choke her throat tighter, "And I suggest quickly you answer quickly."

She looks up at me with a glowered look, "Fine," Jacqueline spits out with venom in her voice, "Besides the fact that I want us to be together again, I'm here to do what you were supposed to do approximately 2 months ago."

I slightly stiffen at the thought, "I can't let you do that Jacqueline."

"Gustave, stop being so selfish and think of your own kind. That bitch Lauren, or whatever her name is, needs to die in order for this war to end. Are you going to do it or not? If you don't more vampires are going to die trying, you know that."

"I know," I whisper, "And I'm not going to let the one I love die for our kinds existence. I've made my decision, please respect it." I let go of her throat and heave myself off of her.

Jacqueline reaches down to her stomach and immediately pulls out the shard of glass. She groans in pain, and lifts herself off of the floor, "You're going to be killed protecting her, a girl who's going to eventually die anyway, so why delay it?"

She was right, but I can't change my mind now, I've fallen too deeply in love with the girl that was the key to protecting my kind. Lauren was my only reason for existing now, if I killed her, I might as well be killing myself. "I'm going to be with her until the day she dies, I'm not going to give up on her just because of a stupid mistake I made."

She looks hurt, and it's not just because of her quickly healing wound, "So, what you're saying is that us making love, was a mistake?" I feel bad but she had this coming for her being a self centered psychotic bitch. She deserves to be hurt the way she hurt me back in 1837.

"We never made love, Jacqueline. It was just meaningless sex, a mistake that I'm never doing again." I say glaring at her with the harshness that she deserves.

"So, you just had sex with me because of that whore of your EX girlfriend?"

I laugh, "I'm pretty sure you're talking about yourself there, since Lauren isn't a whore and she actually has class but I can't say the same for you." I smile at her just to piss her off and it works.

She glares at me and soon she replaces her scowl into a confident look, "I guess I do deserve your harsh words but all I really want to say to you now is I'm sorry about the past and I regret using you like that but I can't change the past. I hope you're happy admiring the girl you love from a distance since she'll never take you back ever again." I glare at her, and she smirks. "So, have a nice life and I'll be back here next week to see if you changed your mind."

"Whatever." I say through gritted teeth. She is indeed the biggest bitch I've ever met and I can't believe at one time I actually loved her.

"Before I go," Jacqueline says, walking towards me. Once she steps in front of me, she places her hands on my chest and I don't push her away, I just scowl down at her. Jacqueline bites her full glossed lips while rubbing her hands up and down my chest, "I know you want to kiss me, I can feel the tension coming off of you."

Even if I did want to kiss her, I wouldn't make the same mistake twice, except that the last mistake was a little more intense and worse than kissing. Still, it wasn't a good idea especially if I wanted to get back together with Lauren. "Well, your feelings must be off because I don't want to kiss you at all. All I want to you to do is get out of my place." I grab her hands that were on my chest, shove them off, point behind her. "The doors that way, I think you can show yourself out."

Jacqueline groans in frustration and anger, stomps away from me angrily, and walks out of my house; slamming the door on her way out, almost breaking the door into halves. I smile to myself finally telling her off like I wanted to, and if she knows what's best for her, she'll never come back like she said she would be.

I walk over to the kitchen to get another bottle of whiskey until I stop in my tracks, thinking of Jacqueline's words. She said that she was only here in town to try and get me back, then there's the other reason, to kill Lauren. I turn around quickly and head out of the door to check up on her to see if what I was thinking was true.

* * *

><p>Once I reach the front of Lauren's house, I go over to the side where her bedroom window was. I jump up onto the tree that is located in front of her window. When I peer into the window, I see that she's not there. I jump off the tree and stride over to the front door and knock on it rapidly until someone opens the door.<p>

"Daniel, what are doing here?" Lauren's mother asks me with confusion and surprise in her voice.

I ignore her question, "Hi , is Lauren home? She hasn't been answering my calls or texts."

She shakes her head, "Sorry, no. She left with a friend of hers." starts closing the door until I stop it with my foot.

"Is she with Rachel?" I ask, starting to get worried.

She sighs, "I'm sorry, but I can't tell you who she is with, I was told not to tell." She then tries closing the door but my foot prevents her from doing that.

I frown, what did she mean by that? I walk inside of the house and step in front of her, put my hands on either side of her face and look into her eyes until they are completely focused on me, "Tell me who Lauren is with," I demanded. I felt kind of bad to control Lauren's mother's mind but I had to in order to get the information out of her, I did it for Lauren's safety.

"A friend of hers named Jackie," Ms. Jones says in a monotone like voice.

Once she utters the name that I was afraid she'd say, I drop my hands from her face and speed over to my car. I didn't bother asking Lauren's mom where they are, I know Jackie would have compelled her not to say anything. I turn the engine on and speed out of the driveway.

As I'm speeding down the road, I contemplate the places where Jacqueline would take Lauren to hold her hostage. My mind immediately goes to the time Lauren, ended up in an abandoned mansion type house on the same road as the gas station.

I do a U turn in the middle of the road and speed up as fast as the car will let me. My mind is racing along with the car, Jacqueline better not have laid a finger on her or she'll answer to me. And it won't be pretty at all.

If Lauren was dead when I got there, I wouldn't forgive myself for letting this happen. Maybe Jacqueline was right, I should have killed her in the beginning but when I think about it, I would have been the same old Daniel, roaming around the earth with no purpose. If it wasn't for her, I would still be a zombie and for that, I'm eternally grateful to her. She has completely changed me for the better and no matter what she says; I'm still madly in love with her.

In what seemed like an hour, I finally arrive at the old house and I jump out of the car before I could even park it. I slam the old front door open, ripping it off of its hinges in the process, I then step inside, expecting to find the worst.


	18. Chapter 18

_Chapter 18_

_**20 minutes before**_

I wake up to a feeling of pain at the back of my head. My eyes then flutter open the sight of candles lit up everywhere around the old familiar looking room.

As I become more conscious, I realize, I'm in the same room as I woke up in almost a week ago. I immediately jolt myself to life, I become more awake and aware now, and I try getting up but I realize that I'm sitting up and tied to a chair. I attempt to rip the tightly tied rope around my hands but I only give myself a burn from the rope. "Save it," a female with a French accent tells me, "It's useless to try and escape."

I look over to the source of the familiar voice and see Jackie leaning ago the wall watching me intently, looking bored. "Jackie, what did you do to me?" I mutter, still feeling the throbbing on the back of my head.

She smiles, "I came over your house knocked you out, and kidnapped you; and it wasn't hard to do. Your mother was so easy to compel, probably because she is so weak minded, just like you."

I glare at her; she doesn't have the right to insult my mother or me. She better not has harmed her or she would have to answer to me. "What do you want with me now Jackie? You already have Daniel, I don't want him." But I need him, I say to myself in my head. I still loved Daniel with all of me but he cheated on me and I don't want a boyfriend who is a cheater, regardless if he did for my 'safety'.

Jackie walks over to me also glaring at me, "Actually, this isn't just about Gustave. Even though he told me off today, hurting my feelings."

I laugh, "What feelings?" I knew I was playing with fate here but I didn't care, I knew I was going to die anyway.

She slaps me hard across my face, "Watch it," she warns, "You have no idea who you're talking to, plus, you're in no position to be smart ass bitch." She paces slowly back and forth, "Now, I just don't know what I'm going to do with you."

"You could just let me go," I suggest nonchalantly.

She smirks, "I don't think so. I have my reasons to kill you but I just don't know how yet." She puts her index finger on her chin and ponders, "I could just snap your neck, a quick instant death, or I can just make you have a painful slow death."

I look at her like she was crazy, because she indeed was, "Why would you want me to die slowly? What did I ever do to you?"

Jackie frowns at me, "Personally, nothing. But you have to die plus it would be nice to see the girl who stole Gustave away from me die a painful death." She smiles, what hell was wrong with this girl?

I'm so confused, "Why do I need to die? And how did I steal Daniel away from you?" I'm curious, and I was hoping to stall her long enough to be able to mentally prepare myself for death. I try looking at the positive side of death, but I can't think of anything. The only thing I would be looking forward to is being able to see my dad again, I wouldn't be alone.

"I'm done with talking," Jackie states with annoyance, "You talk way too much, I wonder how Gustave deals with it." She walks behind the chair I'm sitting in and tightens the rope, "Is that comfortable for you?"

I groan in pain, "Yes," I say hoping that she won't do it anymore.

"Good," she says and walks over across the room to a table, her heels clinking her way over to it. She picks up the only thing on the table, a dagger. She lifts it up until it reflects the light illuminating the candles and twirls it in her hand, examining it. "Perfect," she whispers to herself and in a flash, is in front of me. Jackie drives the dagger into my thigh. I howl in pain, the throbbing starts and soon the pain becomes unbearable that I start tearing up.

Jackie smiles to herself clearly pleased with her doings. She opens her mouth to say something but another voice speaks from behind her, across the room. "This isn't right Jackie." I know right away that the voice is Henry's.

She glances back at him, "Oh, it is right Henry, and you know it. Like I told you, the only way for vampires to dominant the supernatural world is if she dies." She puts her attention back to me and says to him, "If you want to be together, you have to help me kill her the way I want to."

I frown, Henry and Jackie are dating? So that must mean that when Henry was with Daniel and me, he just reported everything back to Jackie. He was her little spy the whole time, betraying Daniel. "That's how she knows everything," I say to Henry, "You reported back to her with everything."

Henry nods, "Yes, and I'm not proud in betraying my friend but I'm really helping him and every vampire by doing this." He walks over to me and takes the dagger out of my left leg to only impale my right leg.

I scream, it hurts so badly, no words can describe it. I can't pull away to get away, I was trapped. Tears stream down my face in agony, "Why me?" I whimper to Jackie and Henry, "I didn't do anything wrong, can you please just kill me already?" I'm usually not the one to give up so easily but in this situation, I am. The pain is so unbearable that death feel like the only thing to get rid of the pain.

Henry yanks out the dagger from out of my leg, making me wince in anguish. He pulls his arm back with the dagger in hand, ready to strike me, "Goodbye Lauren." I squeeze my eyes closed, expecting the worst amount of pain they had in store for me.

After a few seconds, nothing happened other than hearing two thumps on the wooden floor, so I open my eyes to find Henry on the floor. I furrow my brow, confused to what was going on and to why Henry would be on the floor. I gasp as I see Henry's head decapitated from his body across the room. I look over at Jackie who is also shocked, "Gustave," she whispers.

I look over at the door way and see Daniel flipping the dagger that was once in Henry's hands in the air. "Hello Jacqueline," he says when the dagger lands on its side in his open palm. I see Daniel move in a blur and the next thing I see is Daniel impaling the dagger into Jackie, "Goodbye Jacqueline," Daniel whispers.

My mouth is wide open; Daniel killed Henry and Jackie in under a minute. I'm still in disbelief to think that Henry and Jackie are gone from this world so quickly and murderously.

I sigh a sigh of relief when Daniel strides over to me, "Are you okay?"

"No," I reply through gritted teeth, trying to contain the pain, "I can't move my legs, they stabbed my thighs." Before he does anything I look up at him and start crying, from the pain and from how much I missed him, "I'm so sorry Daniel, I know you slep-"

"Shh," Daniel says, he kneels down and speedily unties the rope from my feet, quickly moving up to my wrists. "You don't need to apologize for anything; I should be the one apologizing. I shouldn't have done what I did; I should have just killed her instead." Daniel finishes untying me from the chair and lifts me up in his arms with ease. "Let's get out of here."

Just then, there is a flash of black that separates me from Daniel. Both of us landing on the floor, I howl in pain, the impact hitting my wound and feeling something pierce my stomach. The pain I'm feeling becoming more unbearable. My eyes slowly close at the loss of blood from my legs and now my new wound.

All I can do now is listen to Daniel's cry, "No!" I try opening my eyes to look over at Daniel, but the darkness slowly comes over me. But slowly, the darkness descending, allowing me to see Jackie on top of him with the dagger pointed just above his heart. Remembering when he told me he could only die if he was stabbed in the heart, I try crying out but no words come out.

"I don't want to do this Gustave," she says with false sadness in her voice, "But it's the only way for you not to get in the way of what I need to do next." Jackie brings up the dagger about to strike.

"Go ahead," Daniel says in defeat, "You took away my only reason for living. So what are you waiting for? Just do it."

Tears stream down as I witness Jackie actually impaling Daniel in his heart, I try to call out again but it's no use, the words are trapped in my throat. Just then, the darkness comes again, preventing me to see anything now. All I can think now is that I loved Daniel; I keep repeating the words in my mind. More tears streaming down my face as I think to myself that I couldn't tell him how much he meant to me before he died, I wanted to tell him that I was sorry for everything I put him through.

Again, my vision comes back, and I open my eyes to find Daniel still lying on the floor but what is different now is that I see the dagger planted into his chest and Jackie gone. I cough, blood coming up out of my mouth as I do so. And I struggle as a barely audible whisper comes out of my mouth, towards Daniel, "I love you."


	19. Chapter 19

_Chapter 19_

I lay there on the cold hard floor, waiting for me to die already after I just told Daniel's dead body that I loved him, something I wish I did one last time before he passed away. I start to cry again and look to the ceiling, just waiting and wondering if I'll see Daniel in heaven along with my dad. Did vampires go to heaven? I sure hope so. Sure, Daniel was in a way a demon of the night, a part of the devil; but Daniel isn't like that at all. He had such a pure, good soul full of love and compassion. A soul like his deserves to go into heaven.

I wish I could have told Rachel and my mom one last time that I loved them before I would die like this. Now they will never know how much they mean to me. After everything my mom and I have been through, at the end of the day, I still loved her no matter what. She changed her whole lifestyle just for me and she never remarried and tried to make herself happy because of me. My mom is so selfless, no matter what other people thought about her. And the same went out to Rachel, she's my best friend and helped me through all of the hardships in my life and she was there to make me laugh at the worst of days. If only I could tell her thank you for being there for me when no one else was, she was the definition of a best friend.

Just then, I hear the creaking of the floor boards on the right side of me. I quickly look over to see Daniel staring at me with such surprise and relief, "Lauren." He says with a smile on his face and his sweet velvety voice sounding weak. I notice that a single tear rolls down his cheek.

Despite my condition, I smile so widely that it hurt, "Daniel! You're alive!" I exclaim with happiness, "Are you going to be okay?" I cry, tears constantly rolling down my face. I couldn't believe that Daniel was alive, his heart was pierced, and I saw it for myself. How could he have survived?

He shushes me, "Don't talk, it'll make your condition worse." He looks so weak; he probably looked the same as me right now. "I'll be okay, as long as I don't move; the dagger won't hit my heart, it's just scraping against it right now.

"Why don't-" I try to say. I'm starting to panic

He shushes me again, interrupting the question of why he didn't just take it out of his chest. "Calm down and keep quiet. I don't have the strength to even move my arms to take out the dagger; I haven't drunk any ever since 2 days ago. Any strength I had left I used today to find you and kill Henry and attempted to kill Jacqueline."

I don't respond, for Daniel told me to stay quiet and because I was going to save his life. I get on my side, trying not to scream from the pain of my stomach tempting to rip open and the throbbing of my thighs. I take my arms and start slowly dragging myself towards Daniel. Each movement I mad felt like I was being impaled all over, the pain so unbearable that I starting crying and I feel that I want to give up. But the thought of me being able to save Daniel gives me the strength that I need.

Daniel notices right away what I was planning on doing, "Stop Lauren. Don't move anymore, don't worry about me I'm fine!"

I ignore his suggestion and keep pulling myself towards him. I then finally reach Daniel's side and lift my arm, wrapping my fingers around the dagger's handle and yank it out of Daniel straightly, avoiding to hit his heart. I can tell I didn't puncture his heart because he groans in pain and speaks, "What are you doing Lauren?" He asks cautiously.

What I was doing was saving his life; he needed blood for him to regain strength and to completely heal his wound. I take the dagger that is covered in Daniel's and I blood, and slid it smoothly across my wrist, cutting it."I love you." I whisper to him.

"No," Daniel resists the blood, "I can't." Before Daniel could resist any more of my offering of my blood, I slam my bloody wrist onto his mouth. I can tell that he's trying not to drink my blood since he doesn't sink his teeth into me or anything. Eventually, Daniel gives in and I feel his sharp fangs pierce my wrist and I can feel him sucking the blood out of me.

I can feel the curtain of darkness coming back over my eyes as he continues drinking my blood. I try keeping my eyes open and it works for a little while. Before I let the darkness win, I whisper again to Daniel, "I love you Daniel, forever and always."

When I uttered those last words, the darkness finally defeats me and everything is black. Instantly after the darkness fills me, I'm standing up with no wounds on me anywhere and I see a door of white bright light. The light overfills me with happiness and joy, hope and love. The same feelings Daniel brought to me, the door was inviting me to enter it and I immediately walk into it.

Once I enter the light door, everything surrounding me turns in the white, bright, light. In front of me suddenly appears stairs leading up to a cloud like portal. I slowly walk up the grand staircase, not questioning any of this for I had a feeling of trust that it would lead me to a better place. But then, I think of Daniel, if I go up to the portal, I won't be able to see Daniel ever again. The thought of that happening is depressing. The feelings of happiness try to fill in me but they don't work, my entire mind is focused on is Daniel.

Suddenly, when I'm half way up the stairs, I stop and think to myself, should I go up the rest of the way to a place where I'll be in peace and have a better life and be happy? Or should I go back and try to find my way out of this place to Daniel, the love of my life? My time with Daniel was so short and in that amount of time was the best time of my life; I couldn't let that go so easily. I loved Daniel with everything inside of me and I would fight for that love.

I fight against the wonderful feelings, afraid that if I give in to the feelings that I may never want to leave. I make the decision to go back, and once I start jogging down the stairs, I turn and look behind me, seeing that the portal has closed and the top of the stairs quickly fading to black. I look ahead of me and keep going down the stairs, quicker this time. But the darkness comes quickly behind me. I try to out run it but eventually, the darkness reaches me and it eventually devours the white bright lights. The stairs disappear from underneath me as I start to plunge into the darkness once again.

* * *

><p>I remain in the darkness but what is different now is that I start to feel pain in my stomach and thighs. The pain wasn't nearly as terrible as it was before. The pain was still there, but numbed. I felt relaxed somehow and slowly I start to regain consciousness, hearing a beeping noise that sounds like a heart monitor and rustling of feet rushing towards me. I feel the oxygen going up my nostrils, my hand twitches to life, feeling something in my vein. No one, whoever is, around me doesn't talk; I hear the breathing of someone near my face, kissing it. My thoughts immediately go to Daniel.<p>

My eyes open slowly; my eyes take in the light blue, almost white walls of the hospital room. I can't completely see the room since my mom, Rachel holding a dozen red roses, and Daniel around the hospital bed I'm laying on. My mom pulls away from me; she must have been the one kissing my face, not Daniel like I thought who it would have been.

I immediately feel light headed, dizzy, and disoriented as I look at my mom's face. I have no idea what was going on and why I was here, "Where am I?" I slurred.

"Oh, sweetie," my mom replies sweetly to me, crying, "You had a terrible accident and you're healing in the hospital." She strokes the side of my face tenderly, "I love you and I'm so glad that you are okay, you had me worried sick." She then hugs me tightly for a second and pulls away just as quickly, grinning down at me.

I try to get up but my mom pushes me gently back onto the bed, "Take it easy honey, there is no need to go anywhere." She smiles, "I'm not going to go anywhere."

I look over to Daniel who is staring at me with a look combined of sympathy and relief, not planning to say anything right now to me. He was probably waiting until we were alone. "But, I died," I slowly say, it was so much different saying it out loud than thinking it. I still can't get my mind wrapped around the fact that I indeed died, and Daniel is the one who brought me back to life. Not the doctors or nurses physically, Daniel did; he saved my soul from leaving this earth permanently.

Daniel slightly nods, and I'm the only one who notices this; he confirmed my fears that I really did die, giving me chills up my spine. Daniel and Rachel don't speak at all, my mom is the only one who decides to talk, "…Yes, you did. But it was only for a few minutes, you're alive now and you're staying that way," she gives me a hopeful smile, "That's all that matters." My mom leans down and kisses my forehead.

Rachel coughs, "Actually, you were dead for almost a half hour, and the doctors were trying to get you to come back that whole time." She says truthfully.

"A half hour?" I exclaim, and I hear the beeping of the heart rate become more frequent and rapid. I couldn't believe that I was dead for that long! It felt like not even 5 minutes I was there in that white bright light, which must have been the way to heaven.

My mom slightly glares at Rachel, and then shushes me, "It's alright," she says softly while patting my hand, "All that matters is that you're alive now, right?" My mom then strokes my hand, "This is a good thing."

I suppose that she was right. Maybe it was the drugs in me, but, I don't argue back. That would be something I would usually do. I calm down and the monitor calms with me, which was going to get annoying. I sigh and quietly say, "So what happened to me? And how?" I looked to Daniel when I asked this, knowing he already came up with a story.

Rachel decides to respond, "When Daniel brought you to the hospital, and he said that he found you unconscious in a ditch in the woods with a bloodied knife next to your body." She looks over to Daniel with a somewhat skeptical look, "You told him before you were that Henry did this to you Daniel already talked to the police about everything and I guess they don't need to ask you questions."

She looks back to me and smiles, and jumps over to me to pull me into a tightly yet gentle hug, being careful of my wounds. "Don't scare me like that ever again! I was crying none stop, you should have seen me. Actually, scratch that, you shouldn't have seen me I was a mess."

I giggle, oh how much I missed her. Before I could respond, she immediately says, "I love you babe, and that's not going to change." I squeeze my arms around Rachel a little more tightly, telling her that I didn't want her to let go of me.

"I love you too," I whisper in her ear, staring at Daniel while he stared back at me with a serious look. As much as I wanted to spend time with my mom and Rachel, I needed to talk to him right away. I unwrap my arms around Rachel and she pulls back from me. I look to Rachel and my mom, "Can I talk to Daniel?" They don't do anything or say anything, "Alone…" I linger, hoping that they would understand where I was getting at.

"Of course," my mom nods and smiles to both Daniel and I. My mom has to practically push Rachel out of the room, making me laugh. I immediately stop laughing because it was starting to hurt my abdominal area.

Once my mom shuts the door behind her and Rachel, Daniel speeds over to my side. I open my mouth to talk but he's the first to do so, "How are you feeling right now?" He asks in a monotone like voice.

I adjust myself slightly, "I'm fine, thanks." I pause, "So, what happened with Jackie and Henry?"

He says in a barely audible whisper, "Well, you saw that I killed Henry, but, Jacqueline got away from me. I'm already starting to track her, I have a pretty good idea to where she might be heading."

At the mention of Jackie, I stiffen and my feelings turn to hate. Her trying to kill me was one thing, but messing with my mom and almost killing the love of my life went too far. I compose myself, not wanting to get worked up. I knew that Daniel had it all taken care of, "That's good." I simply say, not knowing what else I could say.

We remain silent for what seems like a forever until I finally decide to say something, "Thank you by the way."

He frowns slightly, "For what?"

I smirk, "For saving me, if you would have never come, I would be dead. So, thank you."

"You're welcome," He murmurs, "But you shouldn't be thanking me at all." Daniel lays his eyes on my bandaged wrist. "I'm the one who did this to you, after all."

I shake my head in protest, "Don't say that Daniel, you didn't do anything of this to me. It was all Jackie's fault, don't blame yourself."

He focuses his eyes on mine, "I'm the one who was stupid enough to accept your offering of blood. If I declined and resisted, you wouldn't have died from blood loss." He vaguely starts raising his voice, "I should have killed Jacqueline a long time ago, if I had, none of this would have ever happened!" The muscles in his jaw become tense.

I gently place my hand on his cheek, "Calm down," I say, trying to soothe his anger, "This wasn't your fault, you didn't know Jackie and Henry would have done this to me. No one could have predicted it." I pause to make sure he's listening to me and when I know he is, I continue, "As for you drinking my blood, I did that myself. I needed to save you first before anything else happened because if I was going to die, I wanted to die knowing that you would have been safe."

"This all could have been prevented if it wasn't for me walking into your life." He says gravely, "I just ruined your life by coming here."

I frown at him, "No you didn't! Stop putting yourself down like that! It's not true and you know it! I would have been killed regardless if you were here or not, you being in my life has made no difference in others wanting to kill me."

He stiffens, "Did Jacqueline tell you?"

"She only told me that I need to die." I inform him with little irritation in my voice, "So, please explain the rest to me."

Daniel sighs in frustration, "I wish I didn't have to tell you this," he mumbles, "It's true what Jacqueline said, most of the vampires want you dead. It's just that they don't know your location and that's what they're trying to do right now, to track you down."

Chills go down my spine, the thought of vampires wanting to kill me sounds like a terrible way to go, what reasons would they have to want me dead anyway? "But, why?"

Another sigh, "You are the descendant of a power werewolf line that could possibly defeat my kind and wipe them off of the planet."

I frown, not knowing what to say or what to do right now with all of these questions plaguing my mind. If I was a werewolf, then why haven't I become one? What exactly was a werewolf? Why would me being a werewolf involve the vampire world? "No, I'm not a werewolf," I deny.

"You are, just not yet."

"Explain, why am I not a werewolf yet?"

"You haven't triggered it yet," he simply says, "The only way you can trigger that side of you, is to kill a vampire."

My frown deepens, I can't believe this. Not even a week ago I found out that the love of my life, Daniel, was a vampire. Now he's telling me that I'm a descendent of a powerful werewolf. I don't know if I can handle this. I don't say anything; I don't know what to say at all to this type of news. It won't be a problem because I don't plan on killing a vampire ever in my life time. Which means I won't turn into a werewolf and I'll be a normal human being right?

Daniel just continues looking me in the eyes and doesn't say anything for a little while, "I love you," he whispers, "I know that you still hate because of what happened with Jacqueline, but, I just wanted to let you know that I'm so sorry and that I will always love you, together or not." He leans down and kisses my forehead.

The truth was, I don't even hate him anymore. I know that he cheated on me but I guess we did break up after that incident in the woods. I couldn't blame and punish him for something that wasn't ever made clear. I don't even hate him for it. I mean, sure I was angry at him but at the end of the day I still loved him.

I reach my hand and place it behind his head and pull him to me, locking our lips. The kiss was tender and soft, I could tell Daniel was cautious because of the condition I was in right now. Soon, I can hear the beeping of the heart monitor become more rapid. I smile to myself while we still kiss.

Not even a minute later, Daniel pulls away and smiles to himself, looking over to the monitor seeing what he caused. "I love you too." I say as I wrap my arms around his neck, embracing each other. "Just promise me no more secrets between us, no matter what."

He tilts his head towards my check and pecks it, "I promise."

We don't say anything; just hold each other in our arms. Until, Daniel pulls back away from me and repeats, "No more secrets." He takes my hands into his, "There's something that I have to tell you then. You may not like it though."

I furrow my brow in curiosity, "What is it, Daniel?"

Daniel sighs before uttering the words that may completely change my life, "Your father is alive, Lauren, and I think I may know where he might be."


End file.
